Educational Relevance

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Overall, framing effects have been found to yield small to moderate effects in decision making scenarios. The intent of many researchers reviewed here was to investigate every day decision making strategies. Conclusive evidence has been provided that indicated memory as important to understanding framing effects in terms of visual and memory illusions. Interference could occur at any point in the information process including the retrieval of information through schematic surface searches, as well as interpreting the retrieved schema in a coherent manner. Theories about memory have increased our awareness of the complexities involved in retrieving and processing information. Information processing theorists have stressed the importance of the relationship between the processing and the limited-capacity, as well as, highlighting the importance of investigating the stimuli and responses alternatives. Fuzzy-trace theorists have emphasized the levels of processing within the context of gist hierarchy.

In terms of framing, these effects tend to be robust because they do occur across situational tasks. However, research seems to have suggested that alternate reasons for this phenomenon may be present. From the time of Tversky and Kahneman’s 1981 study, additional researchers have not been able to replicate the large effect size concluded in the 1981 study. Further research has suggested that levels or amounts of information provided could be very important for determining why framing effects occur. When information provided to the respondent was ambiguous or inadequate, framing effects were large. Perhaps an armchair hypothesis of why Tversky and Kahneman’s Asian disease problem consistently yielded high effects could be due to the level of information needed to be processed is too much beyond the scope of the subjects. This disease scenario can not be considered a daily decision that would be made by the undergraduate participants, so error could possibly occur in interpreting the problem. On the other hand, when subjects had increased levels of personal involvement, such as with the cheating on a test example, framing effects were diminished or eliminated. Studies also investigating mood and arousal effects demonstrated similar findings. When a subject was considered positive, framing effects were less than when a subject was considered negative.

Overall, Tversky and Kahneman’s 1981 study uncovered a phenomenon that has captured much attention. However, research in this area is not yet exhaustive. Much of the literature I investigated involved first year undergraduate students. Only two studies involved elementary level students and one study included adolescents. I suggest that more research on younger subjects could add valuable information to our understanding of cognitive development. Do we really progress from an intuitionistic perspective to a computational understanding of problems, or is it the reverse as predicted by fuzzy-trace theorists? Also, if the level of personal involvement decreases the framing effects, if may be in the classical sense (bi-directional), but unidirectional framing effects may still be present. It would be interesting to put both these hypotheses to task in terms of studying adolescent’s increased involvement in risky decision making, such as with the problem of bullying.