Framing the Default.

A key finding within nudging research is the default effect, where individuals are inclined to stay with a default option when faced with a decision, rather than exploring alternatives (e.g., a preselected job opportunity among two alternatives). Similarly, the study of framing effects delves into how the presentation and context of decisions influence choices (e.g., choosing vs. rejecting a job opportunity among two alternatives). Specifically, previous literature examining choosing versus rejecting decision frames in various situations has found that these frames do not invariably complement each other; therefore, individuals' preferences vary based on the task frame. Yet, simultaneous testing of multiple nudges remains relatively unexplored in the literature. In the current study involving 1,072 participants, we examined how framing and default effects can influence decision-making in hypothetical scenarios. The decision scenarios involved two different domains-work and health. We found that framing had a strong effect on decision-making in both work and health domains, whereas default setting contributed only to a limited extent in the work domain and no effect was found in the health domain, mirroring related recent research findings. We argue for a more careful design of nudge interventions when multiple overlapping nudges are used and for a contextual approach to applying behavioral science to citizens.

A critical review of clinician-directed nudges.

As nudges-subtle changes to the way options are presented to guide choice-have gained popularity across policy domains in the past 15 years, healthcare systems and researchers have eagerly deployed these light-touch interventions to improve clinical decision-making. However, recent research has identified the limitations of nudges. Although nudges may modestly improve clinical decisions in some contexts, these interventions (particularly nudges implemented as electronic health record alerts) can also backfire and have unintended consequences. Further, emerging research on crowd-out effects suggests that healthcare nudges may direct attention and resources toward the clinical encounter and away from the main structural drivers of poor health outcomes. It is time to move beyond nudges and toward the development of multi-level, structurally focused interventions.

Objective numeracy exacerbates framing effects from decision-making under political risk.

While Prospect Theory helps to explain decision-making under risk, studies often base frames on hypothetical events and fail to acknowledge that many individuals lack the ability and motivation to engage in complex thinking. We use an original survey of US adults (N = 2813) to test Prospect Theory in the context of the May 2023 debt ceiling negotiations in the US Congress and assess whether objective numeracy moderates framing effects. We hypothesize and find evidence to suggest that most respondents are risk-averse to potential gains and risk-accepting to potential losses; however, high numerates are more risk-averse and risk-accepting to gains and losses, respectively, than low numerates. We also find that need for cognition interacts with numeracy to moderate framing effects for prospective losses, such that higher need for cognition attenuates risk-acceptance among low numerates and exacerbates risk-acceptance among high numerates. Our results are robust to a range of other covariates and in models accounting for the interaction between political knowledge and need for cognition, indicating joint moderating effects from two knowledge domains similarly conditioned by the desire to engage in effortful thinking. Our findings demonstrate that those who can understand and use objective information may remain subjectively persuaded by certain policy frames.

Effects of communicating health disparities using social comparison framing: A comprehensive review.

Communicating health disparities in mass and social media has typically taken the form of comparing disease risks and outcomes between two or more social groups, a strategy known as social comparison framing. This comprehensive review examined the design and results of 17 studies from 15 peer-reviewed journal articles about the effects of social comparison framing of health disparities. Most studies focus on race-based disparities across a variety of health topics. For individual-level outcomes, social comparison tends to reduce perceived disease risks for the lower disease prevalence group while prompting negative emotions and yielding inconsistent impact on health behavioral intentions among members of the higher prevalence group. For societal-level outcomes, social comparison often has either null or polarizing effects on support for policies to address these disparities that vary by racial identity/attitudes of the respondents. Studies also find that racial comparisons trigger lower levels of support for policy remedies relative to economic, educational, or geographic comparisons. We conclude that social comparison framing of health disparities, in the absence of broader discussion of the social and structural causes of these disparities, is more likely to incur negative consequences. We propose several possible strategies to communicate health disparity information more effectively.

The Nocebo Effect.

Adverse nocebo responses can cause harm to patients and interfere with treatment adherence and effects in both clinic practice and clinical trials. Nocebo responses refer to negative outcomes to active medical treatments in clinical trials or practice that cannot be explained by the treatment's pharmacologic effects. Negative expectancies and nocebo effects are less known than placebo responses. Nocebo effects can be triggered by verbal suggestions, prior negative experiences, observation of others experiencing negative outcomes, and other contextual and environmental factors. As research advances over the years, mechanistic knowledge is accumulating on the neurobiological mechanisms of nocebo effects. This review summarizes studies on different facets of nocebo effects and responses and discusses clinical implications, ethical considerations, and future directions.

Contextual framing effects on risk aversion assessed using the bomb risk elicitation task.

We examine the impact of framing on individuals' risk-taking behavior in the context of health risks during the coronavirus outbreak. We elicit risk attitudes from a sample of 3,385 individuals across seven European countries using an incentivized decision-making task. Participants are randomly assigned to one of three versions of the task: one involving the risk of a bomb explosion, one involving the risk of contracting an infectious disease, and one involving opening an empty box. We find that the framing of the task significantly affects risk-taking behavior, with participants exhibiting greater risk aversion in the health task than in the bomb or neutral task. This framing effect is observed in the majority of the countries studied.

Individual differences moderate effects in an Unusual Disease paradigm: A psychophysical data collection lab approach and an online experiment.

We report two studies investigating individual intuitive-deliberative cognitive-styles and risk-styles as moderators of the framing effect in Tversky and Kahneman's famous Unusual Disease problem setting. We examined framing effects in two ways: counting the number of frame-inconsistent choices and comparing the proportions of risky choices depending on gain-loss framing. Moreover, in addition to gain-loss frames, we systematically varied the number of affected people, probabilities of surviving/dying, type of disease, and response deadlines. Study 1 used a psychophysical data collection approach and a sample of 43 undergraduate students, each performing 480 trials. Study 2 was an online study incorporating psychophysical elements in a social science approach using a larger and more heterogeneous sample, i.e., 262 participants performed 80 trials each. In both studies, the effect of framing on risky choice proportions was moderated by risk-styles. Cognitive-styles measured on different scales moderated the framing effect only in study 2. The effects of disease type, probability of surviving/dying, and number of affected people on risky choice frequencies were also affected by cognitive-styles and risk-styles but different for both studies and to different extents. We found no relationship between the number of frame-inconsistent choices and cognitive-styles or risk-styles, respectively.

Factors and framing effects in support for net zero policies in the United Kingdom.

Achieving ambitious carbon reduction targets requires transformative change to society, with behaviour change playing an important role. Climate change mitigation ('net zero') policies are needed to accelerate and support such behaviour change. This study examined factors and framing effects in public support for net zero policies in the United Kingdom (UK), making use of a large probability sample (ntotal = 5,665) survey conducted in August 2021. It found that net zero policies are widely supported, with only taxes on red meat and dairy products being supported by less than half of the UK public. Climate worry and perceived fairness were the strongest and most consistent predictors of policy support for net zero policies. The results further suggest that support for net zero policies can be increased by emphasising the co-benefits of the policies, in particular where they are beneficial for health. However, the framing effects were very small. In contrast, public support for net zero policies is lower when potential lifestyle and financial costs are mentioned. This suggests that perceived fairness of the distribution of costs and lifestyle implications of policies are crucial for building and maintaining support for net zero.

Framing vaccine mandates: messenger and message effects.

In September 2021, President Biden announced that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would require large employers to ensure workers are vaccinated against Covid-19 or tested weekly. Although widely characterized as 'Biden's vaccine mandate', the policy could be described with equal accuracy as 'OSHA's testing mandate'. Some commentators speculated that reframing the policy as a testing mandate would boost support. This study investigates how framing effects shape attitudes toward vaccination policies. Before the Supreme Court struck down the vaccinate-or-test rule, we presented 1500 US adults with different descriptions of the same requirement. Reframing 'Biden's vaccine mandate' as 'OSHA's testing mandate' significantly increased support, boosting net approval by 13 percentage points. The effect was driven by changing the 'messenger frame' (replacing 'Biden' with 'OSHA') rather than changing the 'message frame' (replacing 'vaccine mandate' with 'testing mandate'). Our results suggest that messenger framing can meaningfully affect public opinion even after a policy is widely known. Our study also reveals a potential cost of presidential administration when partisan divisions are deep. Framing a regulatory policy as an extension of the president can elicit strong-here, negative-reactions that may be avoidable if the policy is framed as the work of a bureaucratic agency.

Eliciting risk preferences that predict risky health behavior: A comparison of two approaches.

Information on attitudes to risk could increase understanding of and explain risky health behaviors. We investigate two approaches to eliciting risk preferences in the health domain, a novel "indirect" lottery elicitation approach with health states as outcomes and a "direct" approach where respondents are asked directly about their willingness to take risks. We compare the ability of the two approaches to predict health-related risky behaviors in a general adult population. We also investigate a potential framing effect in the indirect lottery elicitation approach. We find that risk preferences elicited using the direct approach can better predict health-related risky behavior than those elicited using the indirect approach. Moreover, a seemingly innocuous change to the framing of the lottery question results in significantly different risk preference estimates, and conflicting conclusions about the ability of the indicators to predict risky health behaviors.

Framing Effects, Procedural Fairness, and the Nonprofit Managers' Reactions to Job Layoffs in Response to the Economic Shock of the COVID-19 Crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the viability and effectiveness of nonprofit organizations compelling them to make tough choices. Evidence suggests that different wordings or message settings may affect people's decisions when presenting equivalent outcome information with positive or negative framing. Nevertheless, there have been few attempts to assess how procedural fairness and framing effects shape nonprofit managers' reactions to job layoffs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a survey experiment, we explore whether framing effects-by affecting perceived outcome favorability-and procedural fairness interact to influence nonprofit managers' trust and support for their organizations. The findings of this 2 × 2 between-participants experimental design indicated that only when procedural fairness was relatively low did nonprofit managers react more favorably in the positive frame (keep) than in the negative frame (layoff) condition. This study adds to our understanding of how the pandemic impacts nonprofit managers, including their commitment to continue working in the sector, and has practical implications for nonprofit organizations that manage resilience in a crisis.

Study Title-Based Framing Effects on Reports of Sexual Violence and Associated Risk Factors in College Students.

OBJECTIVE: There are many methodological issues in studying sexual violence, including potential framing effects. Framing effects refer to how researchers communicate the purpose of a study to participants, such as, how the study is advertised or explained. The aim of this study was to investigate if framing effects were associated with differences in participants' self-reported experiences of sexual violence and related correlates. METHODS: College students (N = 782) were recruited to participate in one of four identical studies that differed in the title: "Questionnaires about Alcohol," "Questionnaires about Crime," "Questionnaires about Health," or "Questionnaires about Sexual Assault." Participants chose one of the four studies and completed measures of sexual violence as well as attitudinal and behavioral measures in randomized order. RESULTS: We found significantly more reports of childhood sexual abuse (33.6% vs. 18.5%), rape (33.9% vs. 21.1%), higher frequency of victimization (M = 11.35 vs. 5.44), and greater acknowledged rape for bisexual people (46.2% vs. 0.0%) in the sexual assault (SA) condition compared to other conditions. There were no differences in sexual violence perpetration or attitudinal or behavioral measures. CONCLUSION: These results revealed that framing effects, based on the study title, affect outcomes in sexual victimization research. Rape was reported 1.6× more in the "Sexual Assault" condition than in the "Health" condition. It is unclear whether these framing effects reflect self-selection bias or framing related increased reports in the SA condition, suppression of reports in other conditions, or a combination thereof.

Framing Effects and Evidence Type: Influence on the Persuasive Effect of Myopia Prevention Messages Among Elementary School Students in China.

Background: The myopia is a public health issue that attracts much attention. However, limited attention has been paid to the effect of primary school students' acceptance of health messages. Previous studies have found that framing effects and evidence types influence the persuasive effect of messages. Purpose: This study explored whether framing effects and evidence type influence the persuasive effect of myopia prevention messages among elementary school students and the influence of children's myopia prevention cognition was considered. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1,493 elementary school students aged 9 to 13 in China from May to July 2020 by convenience sampling. Wilcoxon signed-rank test and multinomial logistic regression were used for data analysis. Results: Significant differences were found in the persuasive effect between statistical and non-statistical evidence messages (p < 0.001). Among non-statistical evidence messages, gain-framed messages showed a greater persuasive effect than loss-framed messages (p < 0.001). Among statistical evidence messages, loss-framed messages performed better than gain-framed messages (p < 0.001). Children's myopia prevention cognition exerted no significant effect on the persuasive effect of the messages (p > 0.05). Conclusion: This study demonstrated the influence of framing effect on the persuasive effect of myopia prevention messages among children aged 9 to 13 in China. Non-statistical evidence messages showed a better persuasive effect than statistical evidence messages. Different types of evidence influenced the persuasive effect of gain- and loss- framed messages. These findings have implications for strategies more or less likely to work in making myopia prevention messages for children.

Valence framing effects on moral judgments: A meta-analysis.

Valence framing effects occur when participants make different choices or judgments depending on whether the options are described in terms of their positive outcomes (e.g. lives saved) or their negative outcomes (e.g. lives lost). When such framing effects occur in the domain of moral judgments, they have been taken to cast doubt on the reliability of moral judgments and raise questions about the extent to which these moral judgments are self-evident or justified in themselves. One important factor in this debate is the magnitude and variability of the extent to which differences in framing presentation impact moral judgments. Although moral framing effects have been studied by psychologists, the overall strength of these effects pooled across published studies is not yet known. Here we conducted a meta-analysis of 109 published articles (contributing a total of 146 unique experiments with 49,564 participants) involving valence framing effects on moral judgments and found a moderate effect (d = 0.50) among between-subjects designs as well as several moderator variables. While we find evidence for publication bias, statistically accounting for publication bias attenuates, but does not eliminate, this effect (d = 0.22). This suggests that the magnitude of valence framing effects on moral decisions is small, yet significant when accounting for publication bias.

Framing Messages to Deal With the COVID-19 Crisis: The Role of Loss/Gain Frames and Content.

The goal of this study was to test the role of message framing for effective communication of self-care behaviors in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, contrasting health and economic-focused messages. We presented 319 participants with an unforced choice task where they had to select the message that they believed was more effective to increase intentions toward self-care behaviors, motivate self-care behaviors in others, increase perceived risk and enhance perceived message strength. Results showed that gain-frame health messages increased intention to adopt self-care behaviors and were judged to be stronger. Loss-framed health messages increased risk perception. When judging effectiveness for others, participants believed other people would be more sensitive to messages with an economic focus. These results can be used by governments to guide communication for the prevention of COVID-19 contagion in the media and social networks, where time and space for communicating information are limited.

Factors Associated With Influential Health-Promoting Messages on Social Media: Content Analysis of Sina Weibo.

BACKGROUND: Social media is a powerful tool for the dissemination of health messages. However, few studies have focused on the factors that improve the influence of health messages on social media. OBJECTIVE: To explore the influence of goal-framing effects, information organizing, and the use of pictures or videos in health-promoting messages, we conducted a case study of Sina Weibo, a popular social media platform in China. METHODS: Literature review and expert discussion were used to determine the health themes of childhood obesity, smoking, and cancer. Web crawler technology was employed to capture data on health-promoting messages. We used the number of retweets, comments, and likes to evaluate the influence of a message. Statistical analysis was then conducted after manual coding. Specifically, binary logistic regression was used for the data analyses. RESULTS: We crawled 20,799 Sina Weibo messages and selected 389 health-promoting messages for this study. Results indicated that the use of gain-framed messages could improve the influence of messages regarding childhood obesity (P<.001), smoking (P=.03), and cancer (P<.001). Statistical expressions could improve the influence of messages about childhood obesity (P=.02), smoking (P=.002), and cancer (P<.001). However, the use of videos significantly improved the influence of health-promoting messages only for the smoking-related messages (P=.009). CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggested that gain-framed messages and statistical expressions can be successful strategies to improve the influence of messages. Moreover, appropriate pictures and videos should be added as much as possible when generating health-promoting messages.

The Effects of Obligatory and Preferential Frames on Delay Discounting.

Human decision making is partly determined by the verbal stimuli involved in a choice. Verbal stimuli that may be particularly relevant to human decision making are the words should and like, whereby should is presumably associated with what one ought to choose, and like is presumably associated with what one prefers to choose. The current study examined the potential effects of should and like on decisions in a monetary delay-discounting task. Eighty-three participants were recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk and were randomly assigned to a sequence of 2 conditions-should and like-in a repeated-measures experimental design. Based on condition assignment, the questions "Which should you choose?" and "Which would you like to choose?" appeared above each monetary option and its respective delay. Overall, participants demonstrated significantly lower levels of discounting in the should condition when compared to the like condition. However, this effect was much less consistent for participants exposed to the should condition prior to the like condition. The results of the current investigation indicate that the use of the words should and like constitutes separate classes of verbal stimuli that we refer to as obligatory and preferential frames. The effect of obligatory and preferential frames on delay discounting may be relevant to the prediction and control of decision making in social contexts.

Using counterframing strategies to enhance anti-stigma campaigns related to mental illness.

RATIONALE AND METHODS: Despite the prevalence of media-based anti-stigma campaigns, there is little empirical evidence of their effectiveness and little guidance regarding which communicative strategies can bolster their message. Using a Belgian sample (N = 737) recruited in March-April 2019, the current experimental study manipulated a campaign message using counterframing strategies. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were used to investigate the effectiveness of the resulting nine variants. RESULTS: Campaign effectiveness was most increased by stating that people with a mental illness are "not free-riders or poseurs", or by redefining them as "go-getters" who are "certainly not abnormal or crazy". These variants decreased desired social distance, and significantly reduced stereotype endorsement for people with a high need for cognitive closure. Whereas several campaigns decreased attitudinal stigma for people with a high need for cognitive closure, they inadvertently increased it for people with a low need for cognitive closure. CONCLUSION: This study indicates that small changes in the body copy can impact a campaign's destigmatizing potential. As such, empirical testing is essential to avoid ineffective or counter-productive anti-stigma interventions. Moreover, this study demonstrates that refuting stigmatizing statements can be a valid strategy in anti-stigma interventions, even though previous literature has argued against it.

Goal-Framing and Temporal-Framing: Effects on the Acceptance of Childhood Simple Obesity Prevention Messages among Preschool Children's Caregivers in China.

A range of intervention models are available for childhood obesity prevention; however, few studies have examined the effectiveness of intervention messages. This study developed childhood simple obesity prevention messages on the basis of goal-framing and temporal-framing effects to improve message acceptance among the caregivers of preschool children and explored associated factors. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 592 caregivers of preschool children in urban kindergartens in China during March to April 2019. The framing messages were developed based on prospect theory and construal level theory. The majority (48.4%) of caregivers found the gain-framed, present-oriented message most salient for acceptance. We found that gender, education background, theme, and the use of negative words have impacts on goal-framing effects; and previous participation in a health related intervention, career category, and the theme have impacts on temporal-framing effects (p < 0.001). Goal-framing effects and temporal-framing effects can influence each other (p < 0.001). The findings suggest that the gain-framed, present-oriented message could be considered a strategy to improve the acceptance of information by caregivers. When framing a message, subtle differences like using negative words might affect the exertion of framing effects.

Perspectives on the 2 × 2 Matrix: Solving Semantically Distinct Problems Based on a Shared Structure of Binary Contingencies.

Cognition is both empowered and limited by representations. The matrix lens model explicates tasks that are based on frequency counts, conditional probabilities, and binary contingencies in a general fashion. Based on a structural analysis of such tasks, the model links several problems and semantic domains and provides a new perspective on representational accounts of cognition that recognizes representational isomorphs as opportunities, rather than as problems. The shared structural construct of a 2 × 2 matrix supports a set of generic tasks and semantic mappings that provide a unifying framework for understanding problems and defining scientific measures. Our model's key explanatory mechanism is the adoption of particular perspectives on a 2 × 2 matrix that categorizes the frequency counts of cases by some condition, treatment, risk, or outcome factor. By the selective steps of filtering, framing, and focusing on specific aspects, the measures used in various semantic domains negotiate distinct trade-offs between abstraction and specialization. As a consequence, the transparent communication of such measures must explicate the perspectives encapsulated in their derivation. To demonstrate the explanatory scope of our model, we use it to clarify theoretical debates on biases and facilitation effects in Bayesian reasoning and to integrate the scientific measures from various semantic domains within a unifying framework. A better understanding of problem structures, representational transparency, and the role of perspectives in the scientific process yields both theoretical insights and practical applications.