ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R
主办:中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

Advances in Psychological Science ›› 2012, Vol. 20 ›› Issue (11): 1718-1726.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2012.01718

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Graph-framing Effects in Decision Making

SUN Yan;HUANG Li;LIU Yang   

  1. (1 Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China) (2 Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China)
  • Received:2012-05-22 Online:2012-11-15 Published:2012-11-01
  • Contact: SUN Yan

Abstract: In contrast to the axiom of description invariance, researchers interested in decision framing effects are accumulating evidence that different representations of the same problem do not yield the same preference. Traditional research on framing effects has commonly utilized verbal scenarios. In contrast, the current study manipulated the graphical representation of options by framing the physical characters in figures and found that preferences could be affected even when the words and numbers of the problem were constant. Our evidence showed that such graph framing effects could be detected across different types of graphical displays and different question scenarios. Based on attribute substitution theory and an equate-to-differentiate approach, we proposed a two-process model of graph framing effects: The Graph- edited Equate-to-differentiate Model (GEM).

Key words: decision making, framing effect, graph, equate-to-differentiate approach, axiom of invariance