L8 - Frames and Rationality

Question 1

What are the standards of rationality?

Answer 1

• Sensitivity to relevant information: ability to make judgments and decisions that are sensitive to probabilities of critical events and usefulness of evidence
• Consistency: in equivalent situations, given the same information, people should make equivalent decisions
• People make diff decisions based on how the same info is framed

Question 2

What is a study on framing?

Answer 2

• Asked ppts about the flu virus and how to stop it
• Gave 4 options: ppts picked those when framed ‘lives saved’ and the uncertain option compared to lives lost
• Even though all answers are logically equivalent

Question 3

What was a study looking at framing and product evaluation?

Answer 3

• Ppts asked to evaluate ground beef that was labelled either as 75% lean or 25% fat
• Some given label only, some tasted beef before seeing label and some tasted beef after seeing label
• Label only had biggest change on factor of greasiness from lean to fat, quality and taste
• If people are rational = logically equivalent situations = equivalent choices, decisions, evaluations
• Judgements are influenced by superficial aspects of the framing of a problem, rather than being based on the essential info given

Question 4

What is the effect of a reference point?

Answer 4

• Imagine having a 4 ounce glass filled and then coming back to see 2 ounces - 69% of ppts called it half-empty
• When that glass is empty and then filled to 2 ounces - 88% selected = half-full

Question 5

What is the point of a reference point?

Answer 5

• Reference points reliably influence speakers frame selection
• Frames therefore must carry info beyond their literal content
• Frames that are logically equivalent might convey different information
• Specifically, the selective frame would provide evidence of the speaker’s reference point

Question 6

What are conservational implicatures?

Answer 6

• Things implied by utterances but not explicitly stated
• We make pragmatic assumptions when people speak to us: relevant, concise, honest, clear
• Listeners use these to make inferences about broader context and meaning of what people say

Question 7

Framing and information leakage?

Answer 7

• Speakers use frames depending on their reference point
• In choosing one frame versus another, the speaker is leaking information about their reference points
• Means that speaker is implicitly communicating info about their evaluation of the current situation relative to an unstated reference point

Question 8

What is valenced logically equivalent frames?

Answer 8

• Speakers tend to choose a frame that refers to the attribute that has increased from the reference point to the current situation
• ‘it’s better than it might have been’ where 200 people survive, and its worse than it might have been

Question 9

Summary:

Answer 9

• If speakers choose between logically equivalent ways of framing a situation in an informative way
• If listeners are sensitive to this tendency of speakers
• Then changing judgement depending on the frame used is rational
• Unknown reference points and implicatures makes studying rationality very hard as you don’t know how participants understand a question