Are all Framing Effects Created Equal? Relationships between Risky Choice Framing, Metaphor Framing, and Language
- Paul Thibodeau, Psychology, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, United States
- Stephen Flusberg, Psychology, Purchase College, SUNY, Purchase, New York, United States
AbstractBehavior in classic framing tasks is unrelated to other cognitive bias measures, but little is known about the relationship among different types of framing effects. Across two experiments, participants in the US and India completed a classic risky choice framing task, a metaphor framing task, and measures of cognitive style, linguistic proficiency, and metaphor usage. We found no relationship between performance on the framing tasks for either sample, suggesting they tap into different underlying processes. Interestingly, language proficiency predicted risky choice framing behavior in native speakers and metaphor framing in non-native speakers. While there was a positive relationship between metaphor usage and metaphor framing for US participants, the sample from India showed a negative relationship, suggesting that current measures of metaphor usage may assess different behaviors for native versus non-native speakers. Overall, the results suggest a heterogenous account of the mechanisms underlying framing effects even as they highlight the important role of language.