The Asymmetric Sequential Effects of Gain and Loss Media Frames on Economic Attitudes

人们经常会遇到在不同背景下以不同方式构建的信息。选民可能会听到总统候选人从避免死亡的角度描述一系列军事选择，后来又听到反对党候选人从挽救生命的角度描述同样的选择。一个浏览早间头条新闻的在线新闻读者可能会看到一篇文章，它使用的语言是从收益的角度来描述就业市场的（例如，90%的就业率），然后遇到另一篇文章，从损失（10%的失业率）的角度谈论它。然而，尽管随着时间的推移，同样的信息有被框定和重新框定的趋势，但我们对框定效应是否以及如何超越它们第一次遇到的直接背景知之甚少。相反，大多数关于框架的现有研究都集中在框架对判断的当前（可能是暂时的）影响上。这些影响是戏剧性的，并已被证明会影响经济，政治，心理和健康领域的偏好和行为。然而，他们可能只是捕捉到了一个动态过程的一个快照。在成功的试点数据的基础上，这个跨学科的项目推进了对框架效应的扩展理论理解，表明框架可以坚持：一旦一个人基于当前框架将某件事概念化为损失或收益，可能很难使用不同的框架对其进行重新概念化。此外，损失框架可能从根本上比增益框架更具粘性，因为它们能够塑造人们在不同时间和情况下的思维。因此，虽然公民可能能够相对容易地从从利益角度考虑政策问题转向从损失角度考虑政策问题，但从损失转向收益可能要困难得多。该项目的智力价值与其在社会科学中的理论意义有关：它扩展了我们对框架效应的理解，超越了单一镜头，上下文相关的现象，以研究连续遇到的框架的非对称效应以及产生这种模式的基本机制。基于共同PI在心理学和政治学交叉领域研究问题的共同专业知识，一系列实验将复制和扩展两项试点研究的结果，这两项研究通过扩展经典的特沃斯基和卡内曼框架范式，为不对称粘性效应建立了初步证据。据预测，改变一个问题的框架从增益到损失将有一个更大的影响参与者的喜好，相比改变框架从损失到增益，符合的概念，损失帧比增益帧更粘，更耐重构。随后的实验将测试这种效应背后的基本认知机制，并通过在有关经济的模拟新闻故事的背景下测试这些过程，为未来的研究搭建桥梁。该项目的更广泛影响来自其对重大政策问题的潜在影响，包括公民接触到经济信号的得失顺序如何影响公众对经济的看法。例如，在经济衰退之后，随着经济开始显示出复苏的迹象，关于经济的新闻报道可能会从损失帧转向增益帧。然而，如果损失框架如假设的那样更具粘性，那么后期的收益框架可能对经济感知产生微弱影响。通过这种方式，新闻中损失和收益框架的连续使用可能会直接影响消费者信心--从而影响经济本身--的复苏速度。因此，拟议研究提出的理论可能对理解和改善经济衰退后的经济复苏产生重大影响。

People often encounter information that has been framed in different ways across contexts. A voter might hear a presidential candidate describe a set of military options in terms of deaths prevented, and later hear the opposing candidate describe the same options in terms of lives saved. An online news reader browsing the morning headlines might see one article written using language that frames the job market in terms of gains (e.g., 90% employment), and then encounter a different article that talks about it in term of losses (10% unemployment). Yet despite this tendency for the same information to be framed and reframed over time, we know very little about whether and how framing effects might carry over beyond the immediate context in which they are first encountered. Instead, most existing research on framing has focused on the current - and presumably temporary - effects of frames on judgment. These effects are dramatic, and have been shown to impact preferences and behavior across economic, political, psychological, and health domains. Yet they may be capturing only one snapshot of what is in fact a dynamic process.Building on a foundation of successful pilot data, this interdisciplinary project advances an expanded theoretical understanding of framing effects, suggesting that frames can stick: Once a person conceptualizes something as a loss or gain based on the current framing, it may be difficult to reconceptualize it using a different frame. Moreover, loss frames may be fundamentally stickier than gain frames in their ability to shape people's thinking across time and situations. Thus, while citizens may be able to shift with relative ease from thinking of a policy issue in terms of gain to thinking of it in terms of loss, it may be much more difficult to shift from loss to gain. The intellectual merit of this project is associated with its theoretical implications across the social sciences: its expansion of our understanding of framing effects beyond a single shot, context-dependent phenomenon to investigate the asymmetric effects of sequentially encountered frames and the basic mechanisms that produce this pattern. Building on the co-PIs' joint expertise in studying issues at the intersection of psychology and political science, a series of experiments will replicate and extend the results of two pilot studies that established initial evidence for an asymmetric stickiness effect by expanding on a classic Tversky and Kahneman framing paradigm. It is predicted that changing the framing of a problem from gain to loss will have a larger impact on participants' preferences, compared to changing the frame from loss to gain, consistent with the notion that loss frames are stickier than gain frames and more resistant to reframing. Subsequent experiments will test basic cognitive mechanisms underlying this effect, and build a bridge to future research by testing these processes in the context of mock news stories about the economy.The broader impacts of the project emanate from its potential implications for consequential policy issues, including how the order in which citizens are exposed to gain and loss economic signals may affect public perceptions of the economy. For instance, following an economic recession, news reports on the economy may move from loss frames to gain frames as the economy begins to show signs of recovery. Yet if loss frames are more sticky, as hypothesized, then the later gain frames may have a muted effect on economic perceptions. In this way, the sequential use of loss and gain frames in the news may directly affect the rate at which consumer confidence - and, thus, the economy itself - recovers. The theory advanced by the proposed research could therefore have substantial implications for understanding and improving economic recovery in the wake of a recession.