Goal Framing Research Articles

Effects of Goal Framing in Job Advertisements on Organizational Attractiveness1

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of goal framing in job advertisements on organizational attractiveness. Job ads were created that emphasized the potential costs or losses of not applying (i.e., loss frame) or the potential gains or benefits of applying (i.e., gain frame). The first experiment (N= 70) found that participants were more attracted to the company in the gain‐framed ad than in the loss‐framed ad. The second experiment (N= 100) attempted to determine the reason for the greater attractiveness of the gain‐framed ad compared to the loss‐framed ad. Two possible explanations— valence‐based encoding and regulatory focus—were examined. Results suggest that both valence‐based encoding and regulatory focus mediated the relationship between framing and organizational attractiveness.

Framing, gender and tax compliance

In the context of extensive social science research on framing, we discuss how framing objectively equivalent information can (but does not always) differentially affect individuals’ attitudes and behaviors. Many of these framing effects have been found in the health communications and marketing literatures. Using a typology of framing developed by Levin et al. [Organ. Behav. Hum. Dec. Proc. 76 (1998) 149], we are able to classify prior tax compliance research, much of it reported in the Journal of Economic Psychology, that suggests decision frames influence tax reporting behavior. This prior research is now known as risky choice framing. Our study differs from this prior literature as, using goal framing, we manipulate two objectively equivalent messages (one positively framed, one negatively framed) that are communicated to adult taxpayers. We find no evidence of a main effect for framing objectively equivalent information. However, in line with prior research, a significant frame by gender interaction effect was documented. We discuss our results in the light of prior framing and tax compliance research and suggest policy implications. A further contribution of this study is that goal framing effects are demonstrated to extend beyond health and consumer behavior settings.

The Motivational Function of Regulatory Focus in Creativity

The Regulatory Focus Theory maintains that people may focus on achieving positive outcomes (have a promotion focus) or avoiding negative ones (have a prevention focus) when they pursue their goals. Under a promotion focus, people would formulate as many strategies as possible to attain their goal, and hence be fluent in idea generation when they perform a creative task. In contrast, people under a prevention focus would seek to avoid the negative consequences of failing to attain a valued goal, and persist even when the likelihood of success in a creativity situation is small. We tested these predictions in a study, where regulatory focus was measured as an individual differences variable (Part 1) and induced by a goal framing manipulation (Part 2). The results supported our predictions, and suggested that creative accomplishment requires flexible alternation of regulatory foci at the different stages of creative undertakings.

Characteristics of acute schizophrenic patients on atypical antipsychotics

In order to assess the degree to which specific groups will adapt their travel behaviors after certain intervention, this study utilized a cluster analysis to discuss three segments’ distinct goal frames, social-demographic properties, travel modes, and habitat, and then carried out an information intervention controlled trial to discover three segments’ modal split shifts. The results indicate that the information have consistent and distinct impacts on travel mode choice by clusters. This consistency is embodied in the simultaneous and significant increase in travel times by green modes (walking, non-powered bicycle, or bus) and in the small but non-significant effects on reducing car use in the three clusters. The distinctness of the impacts is that information have a more effective influence on subjects with gain goal frames because their travel times by all three green modes greatly improved. Subjects with the hedonic goal frame are the least sensitive to information, with the only significant increase in travel times being by non-powered bicycle. This research also addressed the “attitude-behavior gap”, weather impacts, and goal-oriented prompts. The findings suggest that policy interventions should be designed to improve public transit features, especially the bicycle system, rather than only to constrain car use, and that tailored policies should be targeted to specific groups with different goal frames.

A New Look at Framing Effects: Distribution of Effect Sizes, Individual Differences, and Independence of Types of Effects

Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth (1998) identified three distinct types of framing effects in the literature: attribute framing effects, goal framing effects, risky choice framing effects. While most previous framing studies used between-subjects manipulations of frame, the present study used two sessions, spaced one week apart, to give each of 102 participants both framing conditions and all three types of framing. Using the difference between the score for the positive framing condition and the negative framing condition as the unit of analysis for each type of framing effect, the following were found: (1) reliable framing effects for attribute framing and risky choice framing, but not for goal framing; (2) distributions of individual framing effects showing that the aggregate-level effects were representative of individuals even though some individuals showed no framing effects; (3) no significant interdependencies between the three categories of framing effects; (4) individual differences in reaction to the task scenarios related to various of the “Big Five” personality traits as well as the Faith in Intuition scale. The use of within-subject designs to assess individual differences in decision-making phenomena such as framing effects and other biases and heuristics is recommended for future research.

Intensity of Emotions, Emotional Regulation, and Goal Framing: How are They Related to Adolescents' Choice of Coping Strategies?

This article examined adolescents' reports of how they cope with a specific social stressor: authority conflict with parents. This situation was presented to 626 adolescents as part of a larger study on coping with stress. Students were requested to report on the intensity of the stress experienced, intensity of emotions, emotion regulation, perceived availability of social support, goal framing, and coping strategies used. Coping strategies split up factor-analytically into two coping patterns, namely fighting the stressor and coming to terms with the stressor. The relations between these two coping modes and various aspects of the students' mental representation of the stressor were examined. It was predicted that the way students frame the coping goal would affect their choice of coping strategies. Direct effects of coping strategy, emotion regulation and social support on intensity of stress were tested as well as moderating effects of the type of coping mode used on the relationship between emotion regulation and experienced stress. It is suggested that some youngsters consider an authority conflict with their parents as a normal aspect of daily functioning, whereas other view it as a developmental challenge.

Decision Aids for Generating Analytical Review Alternatives: The Impact of Goal Framing and Audit-Risk Level

An auditor generating potential explanations for an unusual variance in analytical review may utilize a decision aid, which provides many explanations. However, circumstances of budgetary constraints and limited cognitive load deter an auditor from using a lengthy list of explanations in an information search. A two-way between-subjects design was created to investigate the effects of two complementary approaches to trimming down the lengthy list on the number of remaining explanations carried forward into an information search. These two approaches, which represent the same goal (reducing the list) but framed differently, are found to result in a significantly different number of remaining explanations, in both low- and high-risk audit environments. The results of the study suggest that the extent to which an auditor narrows the lengthy list of explanations is important to the implementation of decision aids in analytical review.

Exploring the role of conditional goal setting in depression

The past decade has given rise to an increasing interest in relationships between goal setting and depression. Significant relationships have been identified between goal type, goal framing, goal difficulty and goal organisation, and depressive experiences. The present paper explores individuals' motivations controlling goal setting and their relationship to rumination and depression. Findings indicate that whilst some individuals make their personal well-being conditional upon general life achievements, others make the achievement of only one or two specific goals a prerequisite for personal happiness. This specific process has been named Conditional Goal Setting (CGS). Findings suggest that CGS is significantly related to depression. This relationship appears to be mediated by rumination with CGS of achievement goals but not CGS of relationship goals. Findings are discussed with reference to current goals and depression research.

Attribute Framing and Goal Framing Effects in Health Decisions

Levin, Schneider, and Gaeth (LSG, 1998) have distinguished among three types of framing—risky choice, attribute, and goal framing—to reconcile conflicting findings in the literature. In the research reported here, we focus on attribute and goal framing. LSG propose that positive frames should be more effective than negative frames in the context of attribute framing, and negative frames should be more effective than positive frames in the context of goal framing. We test this framework by manipulating frame valence (positive vs negative) and frame type (attribute vs goal) in a unified context with common procedures. We also argue that the nature of effects in a goal-framing context may depend on the extent to which the research topic has “intrinsic self-relevance” to the population. In the context of medical decision making, we operationalize low intrinsic self-relevance by using student subjects and high intrinsic self-relevance by using patients. As expected, we find complete support for the LSG framework under low intrinsic self-relevance and modified support for the LSG framework under high intrinsic self-relevance. Overall, our research appears to confirm and extend the LSG framework.

How positive and negative frames influence the decisions of persons in the United States and Australia

Cites the existence of information framing effects as an interesting phenomenon in the area of human judgements and decision‐making. Uses three distinct types of framing effect and the hypothesis identified by Leven et al (1998). Studies the reliability of these effects across samples of subjects in the USA and Australia. Shows that, for two of the three types, attribute framing and risky choice framing, the effects were strong and almost identical in the two samples. Highlights a significant effect for the US sample, but not the Australian sample, for the third type, goal framing. Discusses results in terms of the reliability of the effects and their potential for revealing cross‐cultural differences in values.

The Importance of the Question in Motivated Cognition and Social Comparison

The three target articles composing this symposium argue persuasively that social inference is influenced by people's goals and needs. Dunning (this issue) describes how the desire maintain a positive self-image leads the development and maintenance of positive self-schemata. According Kunda and Sinclair (this issue), stereotypes regarding a target are activated, applied, or inhibited depending on the target's behavior has positive, negative, or neutral implications for the self. In the third target article, Murray (this issue) shows how people construe their romantic partners in ways that sustain the perception that one's partner has positive attributes and the relationship will continue. In an earlier article, Kunda (1990) classified motivated cognition into two major categories: those in which the motive is to arrive at an accurate whatever it may be, and those in which the motive is arrive at a particular conclusion (p. 480). The articles in this symposium focus on the second category. Regardless of which category of motivated cognition we consider, a common element is the nature of the question posed in selfand other-evaluation. In Dunning's research, the implicit or explicit question is Do I possess positive attributes? For Kunda and Sinclair's stereotyping research, the question is the evaluator who praises or derogates the self is credible or uncredible. The relationship studies described by Murray focus on whether my romantic partner has positive attributes that will help maintain our In each case, a goal frames the question such that information is retrieved from memory or beliefs are constructed that are consistent with the goal. A hot question (using Abelson's hot-cold cognition dichotomy) steers a cold, cognitive process. This follows from reasonably well-understood processes used in lay hypothesis testing: People rely on a positive test strategy whereby they seek out instances in which the hypothesized property is known or expected be present rather than absent (Klayman & Ha, 1987; see also Kunda, 1990). For example, the question, Am I a capable leader? prompts a biased memory search for instances attesting my leadership skills and not those situations when my leadership capabilities were lacking. After receiving negative feedback, Kunda and Sinclair's research participants should want derogate the source. In essence, they are implicitly asking, What kind of person gave me such negative feedback? Consequently, they recruit relevant beliefs that would discredit the feedback. In contrast, if the feedback that participants received was positive, then they frame the question differently because now the self is bolstered if the source is credible. Murray's participants want be part of a committed and sustaining relationship. The question here is Is my partner loving and committed?, which should encourage the retrieval of positive memories and beliefs about the partner. In each of these cases, the evaluative question is framed in a way that increases the retrieval of hypothesis-consistent evidence. The nature of the evaluative question is also important in understanding how comparisons with other people influence feelings and behavior (Smith, 1981). In contemporary social comparison theory (Suls & Wills, 1991), the two categories of motivated cognition are evident. Self-evaluation involves people making social comparison for the purpose of obtaining accurate assessments of their abilities and opinions. According Festinger (1954), self-evaluation is best achieved by comparing with similar others, although he was ambiguous about what constituted similarity. Over the last 40 years, the similarity hypothesis has received mixed support although a reformulation of the theory (Goethals & Darley, 1977) has been more successful. A second motive, self-enhancement, prompts the selection of comparisons that increase or maintain positive affect, particularly if the self has been threatened. Here, a directional conclusion, borrow Kunda's (1990) phrase, is preferred. The self-enhancement approach social comparison has several variants, but the most influential was proposed by Wills (1981), who argued that people under threat compare with other persons who are worse off feel better. Indeed, in several studies with populations under threat, such as medical patients, participants reported downward comparisons that appeared be used as a means cope with their predicament (e.g., Wood, Taylor, & Lichtman, 1985). There is considerable evidence of social comparisons made in accord with the self-evaluation and self-enhancement motives. However, the empirical literature shows much inconsistency in selection and impact of comparison information (Kruglanski & Mayseless, 1990; Suls & Miller, 1977). Similar others are not always preferred assess one's level of ability. In the case of self-enhancement, there are several em-

All Frames Are Not Created Equal: A Typology and Critical Analysis of Framing Effects

Accentuate the positive or accentuate the negative? The literature has been mixed as to how the alternative framing of information in positive or negative terms affects judgments and decisions. We argue that this is because different studies have employed different operational definitions of framing and thus have tapped different underlying processes. We develop a typology to distinguish between three different kinds of valence framing effects. First we discuss the standard risky choice framing effect introduced by Tversky and Kahneman (1981) to illustrate how valence affects willingness to take a risk. Then we discuss attribute framing, which affects the evaluation of object or event characteristics, and goal framing, which affects the persuasiveness of a communication. We describe the distinctions, provide a number of examples of each type, and discuss likely theoretical mechanisms underlying each type of framing effect. Our typology helps explain and resolve apparent confusions in the literature, ties together studies with common underlying mechanisms, and serves as a guide to future research and theory development. We conclude that a broader perspective, focused on the cognitive and motivational consequences of valence-based encoding, opens the door to a deeper understanding of the causes and consequences of framing effects.

On the proper formulation of safety goals and assessment of safety margins for rare and high-consequence hazards

The issue of ‘uncertainty’ is addressed in the special context of assessing and managing risks from rare, high-consequence hazards. It is suggested that, rather than the usual ‘formal treatments’ on how to combine expert opinions that diverge widely, such ‘uncertainty’ must be approached in each case as a research question that encompasses frame of assessment, approach methodology, risk management, and safety goals, with the aim of obtaining resolution in a clear, consistent, and complete manner. This, together with some basic considerations on ‘defense-in-depth,’ and certain practical aspects of communications and synergism needed for resolution (of such uncertainties), leads us to the Risk Oriented Accident Analysis Methodology (ROAAM). The purpose of this paper is to explain these views, to follow them through to the definition of the methodology and its implementation, and to indicate some of the insights gained through the several practical applications available so far.

Approach Versus Avoidance Goals: Differences in Self-Evaluation and Well-Being

Proceeding from a model of feature-positive goal monitoring, two studies tested hypothesized associations between approach goals and positive self-evaluations and between avoidance goals and negative self-evaluations. The existence of feature-positive searches in goal monitoring was expected to bias self-evaluations toward perceiving success for approach goals and failure for avoidance goals. Study 1 established the existence of a relationship between goal framing and global self-evaluations, or psychological well being, subjects with more avoidance goals evaluated themselves more negatively on measures of self-steem, optimism, and depression. Study 2 confirmed the causal role of goal framing in this relationship, for self perceptions of success and satisfaction differed as a function of manipulated approach versus avoidance goals.

The influence of quantity of information and goal framing on decision

The paper examines how goal framing (i.e. formulating the decision problem in terms of acceptance vs. rejection) interacts with the quantity of information to determine judgment and choice. We trace the interaction between goal framing and information quantity to the effect of frames on the weight associated with positive and negative information. In three experiments we show that as the quantity of information increases, the differences in choice (Experiments 1 and 3) and judgment (Experiment 2) between accept and reject frames increase as well.

Geometric optimization algorithims for robot kinematic design

AbstractThis article addresses the problem of designing a robotic mechanism such that its end‐effector frame comes closest to reaching a set of desired goal frames. We formulate this as an optimization problem, in which the kinematic parameters are selected to minimize the total distance between the end‐effector frame and each goal frame. The objective function is defined in terms of a class of distance metrics on the rigid body motions that are invariant with respect to choice of fixed reference frame. A main contribution of this article is an explicit expression for the gradient of this objective function with respect to the kinematic parameters. With this analytic gradient, efficient optimization algorithms can now be developed for the design of general spatial mechanisms. Our design methodology is illustrated with an example involving the base positioning of two cooperating robots. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Path planning and guidance techniques for an autonomous mobile cleaning robot

In the past mobile robot research was often focused on various kinds of point-to-point transportation tasks. Mobile robot application in service tasks, however, requires quite different path planning and guidance approaches. This paper introduces and discusses in detail specific planning and guidance techniques for a mobile floor-cleaning robot. A kinematic and geometric model of the robot and the cleaning units as well as a 2D-map of the indoor environment are used for planning an appropriate cleaning path. The path is represented by a concatenation of two kinds of typical motion patterns. Each pattern is defined by a sequence of discrete cartesian intermediate goal frames. These frames represent position and orientation of the vehicle and must be translated into motion commands for the robot. The steps of this semi-automatic path planning system are illustrated by a typical cleaning environment. Vehicle guidance includes execution of the planned motion commands, estimation of the robot location, path tracking, as well as detection of and reaction to (isolated) obstacles. For location estimation a least-squares fitting of corresponding geometric contours from the 2D-environment map and geometric 2D-sensor data is used. Obstacle detection is accomplished by testing geometric 2D-sensor data to be part of the preplanned cleaning path. Path planning and parts of the developed vehicle guidance system have been tested with the experimental mobile robot MACROBE. Results reported in this paper demonstrate the efficiency of the described planning, location estimation and path tracking procedures in basic floor-cleaning tasks. >

Distance Metrics on the Rigid-Body Motions with Applications to Mechanism Design

In this article we examine the problem of designing a mechanism whose tool frame comes closest to reaching a set of desired goal frames. The basic mathematical question we address is characterizing the set of distance metrics in SE(3), the Euclidean group of rigid-body motions. Using Lie theory, we show that no bi-invariant distance metric (i.e., one that is invariant under both left and right translations) exists in SE(3), and that because physical space does not have a natural length scale, any distance metric in SE(3) will ultimately depend on a choice of length scale. We show how to construct left- and right-invariant distance metrics in SE(3), and suggest a particular left-invariant distance metric parametrized by length scale that is useful for kinematic applications. Ways of including engineering considerations into the choice of length scale are suggested, and applications of this distance metric to the design and positioning of certain planar and spherical mechanisms are given.

The limited effect of economic self-interest on the political attitudes of the mass public

Tax morale has been a focus of academics and policy makers for some time. The measurement of individuals’ tax morale is subjective, and various proxies have been employed in qualitative and quantitative research. The framing of these measures has been considered in some research with respect to equivalency or goal framing, but the underlying implication of emphasis framing in commonly used proxies has yet to be considered. Further, although fairness and financial literacy have been considered determinants of tax morale, no one has yet considered whether financial and tax literacy (FTL) has a moderating effect on fairness and tax morale.This research addresses these gaps in the literature. The findings suggest that questions and scenarios posed by academics and policy makers should consider positive, negative, and emphasis framing, as well as the moderating effect of the respondents’ FTL to measure individuals’ tax morale effectively. The findings also suggest that raising levels of FTL could have a double dividend: not only will improved FTL have a positive impact on tax morale, but it might be magnified through the impact of fairness. These findings hold only when morale is determined by negatively framed scenarios. In particular, the perceived fairness of the tax system enhances tax morale when FTL is high, whereas the perception of fairness has no effect on tax morale for respondents with lower levels of FTL.

The socio-political responsibility of control engineers for the technical development of the future

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the socio-political responsibility of control engineers for the technical development of the future. The professional associations such as trade unions and technical organization ions have not take a sufficient interest in these overall socio-political tasks. Refined procedures on the one hand increase the quantity and quality of production, as well as the use and reuse of raw materials and energy of low quality; however on the other hand, refined procedures include the danger of undesired negative effects more strongly. Nontechnicians (like most of the politicians, doctors, sociologists, technologists, lawyers, etc.) who work for men and society, for whom technics shall bring advantage, are mostly notable any more to see the possible dangers being caused by technics. Concrete programmers have to be formulated and carried out within the clearly defined goal frame.