Scholarlink

<p>Framing effects play a central role in the debate regarding human rationality. They violate the normative principle of <i>description invariance</i>, which states that merely redescribing options or outcomes in equivalent ways should not affect judgments or decisions. Description invariance is considered by many decision researchers to be “normatively unassailable”, and violations are widely regarded as demonstrations of systematic irrationality. This article develops an alternative perspective on invariance violations, applying Funder’s (<CitationRef CitationID="CR13">1987</CitationRef>) distinction between “errors” and “mistakes”. Description invariance implicitly assumes that (1) rational preferences must be complete and (2) frames do not convey choice-relevant information. We argue that both assumptions often do not hold. When they fail, framing effects in the laboratory are not “errors”, and they do not provide evidence for “mistakes” in natural environments. Furthermore, recent findings suggest that participants often do not regard different responses to different frames as unreasonable, and presenting them with arguments for and against description invariance has little effect on their views. Finally, we argue that similar lessons generalize to other coherence norms, such as procedure invariance and independence of irrelevant alternatives.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

When and why framing effects are neither errors nor mistakes

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

    开放获取

  • 发表日期：

    2025年10月17日

查看全文
  • Craig R. M. McKenzie,
  • Shlomi Sher,
  • Xingyu Shirley Liu,
  • Leo J. Kleiman-Lynch

摘要

Framing effects play a central role in the debate regarding human rationality. They violate the normative principle of description invariance, which states that merely redescribing options or outcomes in equivalent ways should not affect judgments or decisions. Description invariance is considered by many decision researchers to be “normatively unassailable”, and violations are widely regarded as demonstrations of systematic irrationality. This article develops an alternative perspective on invariance violations, applying Funder’s (1987) distinction between “errors” and “mistakes”. Description invariance implicitly assumes that (1) rational preferences must be complete and (2) frames do not convey choice-relevant information. We argue that both assumptions often do not hold. When they fail, framing effects in the laboratory are not “errors”, and they do not provide evidence for “mistakes” in natural environments. Furthermore, recent findings suggest that participants often do not regard different responses to different frames as unreasonable, and presenting them with arguments for and against description invariance has little effect on their views. Finally, we argue that similar lessons generalize to other coherence norms, such as procedure invariance and independence of irrelevant alternatives.