The Relationship Between Involvement And The Framing Efect

Rational decision maker is expected to make a neutral judgment no matter how the problem is described. However, humans usually make irrational behavior because of lack the knowledge, computational skills, or resources necessary. The framing effect just is a kind of irrational behavior. Tversky and Kahneman (1981) found judgments and decisions can be greatly influenced by the way information is presented or framed about the same Asian disease problem. That is, most participants chose the sure thing when outcomes were framed positively and the risky option when outcomes were framed negatively. This kind of phenomenon is named framing effect. The framing effect is a kind of phenomenon which people s choices when faced with consequentially identical decision problems framed positively versus negatively are often contradictory. Levin, Schneider and Gaeth (1998) identified three distinct types of framing effects in the literature:attribute framing effects, goal framing effects, risky choice framing effects. Different types of framing reflects systematic different in information coding and the reaction way about the positive and negative information, but the results are showing the reversal of the risk preference.The emergence of framing effect has a clear human decision shortcoming. But other studies have found that frame effect and not necessarily produce. It becomes more important that when and why the framing effect will be obtained, which is very important to understanding and forecast decision. Some researchers have suggested that there may be moderators, such as individual level of issue involvement, which influence the magnitude of framing effects.Some studies have demonstrated that individuals who are high involved with the issue have greater motivation to process the salient information than low involved. Thus, it is reasonable to expect that people high involved are less susceptible to the information frame. Rothman and colleagues (1993) found a significant interaction for framing and gender with respect to intentions to perform skin cancer detection behavior. They concluded this may be due to women’s higher involvement with the topic. Donovan and Jalleh (2000) found positive frame to be superior for low-involved respondents, and there was no framing effect for high involved. Under the electronic product attribute framing study, Cheng and Wu (2010) found less involved participants were more susceptible to framing effect than more involved subjects.However, other studies have showed a different conclusion. Such as Rothman and Salovey (1997) found that high involved negative frame more effective than positive frame, low involved without significant frame effect. In the attribute framing study, Nonovan (1999) found low involved produced no framing effect, high involved easy to produce the framing effect. High emotions involved more vulnerable to the influence of the frame was found by Fagley (2010). In the driving problems research by Thorsteinson (2009), the conclusion found involved in decision-making situation was not intermediary variable of frame effect. In short, so far, the relationship between involvement and the framing effect has not yet been determined. In addition, more attention was paid to study the relationship between involvement degree and the framing effect, which might be result in the dispution. For example, Rothman and Salovey(1993). Fagley (2010) focused on the influence of the emotional factors, but did not specified involvement in types, which provide a direction for later research. This study investigates their relationship from involvement type of view. To further clear the relationship between involvement and the framing effect make a contribution.Based on the above issues and the existed debate, we have developed a research framework as a whole. An exploratory experiment was studied, the purpose to explore the relationship between involvement degree, involvement type and the framing effect. Experiment1a was to explore the decision making preferences under different involvement degree. Two factor experiment between subjects was tested, the independent variable:involvement degree and framing property. The dependent variable was participants’estimation score on immunization. Experiment1b was to explore the decision making preferences under different involvement type. Two factor experiment between subjects was tested, the independent variable:involvement type and framing property. The dependent variable was participants’estimation on immunization. High involved include mothers of infants(Less than one year old), pregnant women, and those intending to get pregnant in the next12months or their spouses. The analysis was conducted using analyses of variance (ANOVAs). Experiment1a found that compared to high involvement respondents, low involved will be more susceptible to framing. However, high involvement can divided into high affective involvement and high cognitive involvement. Through manipulation involvement type, experiment1b found when individual was high affective involvement, high cognitive involved was also vulnerable to framing.Second, we have developed three experiment to explore the reason why high affective involvement is more sensitive to framing by contrast analysis method. The experiments expect when participants were high affective involved, holistic processing dominated; when participants were high cognitive involved, analytical processing dominated.Experiment2was to explore the relationship among intuitive confidence, involvement type and framing effect. Three factor experiment between subjects was tested, the independent variable:involvement type, intuition confidence (great intuition confidence or lower intuition confidence) and framing property. The dependent variable was participants’estimation on immunization. The result shows that:in high affective involvement conditions, when intuition confidence is great, it is most easy to produce the framing effect; when intuition confidence is lower, the framing effect is discount; in high cognitive involvement conditions, the results are opposite.The same to the Experiment2, experiment3was to explore the relationship among individual differences in processing style, involvement type and framing effect. Three factor experiment between subjects was tested, the independent variable:involvement type, individual differences in processing style (rational favorability or experiential favorability) and framing property. The dependent variable was participants’estimation on immunization. The result shows that:in high affective involvement conditions, when participants was prefer experiential processing style, it is most easy to produce the framing effect; when participants was prefer rational processing style, the framing effect is discount; in high cognitive involvement conditions, the results are opposite.Experiment4was to explore the relationship among Ease-of-Retrieval, involvement type and framing effect. Three factor experiment between subjects was tested. The independent variable:involvement type, Ease-of-Retrieval (list two reasons for their preference or list six reasons for their preference) and framing property. The dependent variable was participants’estimation on immunization. The result shows that:in high affective involvement conditions, when participants was asked list two reasons for their preference, it is most easy to produce the framing effect; when participants was asked list six reasons for their preference, the framing effect is discount; in high cognitive involvement conditions, the results are opposite.Integration of the above mentioned experimental results, we draw the following conclusions:Compared to high involvement respondents, low involved will be more susceptible to framing. However, compared to high cognitive involvement, when individual was high affective involvement, there was also vulnerable to framing. The reason is that different involvement types possibly invoke different processing type. When participants were high affective involved, holistic processing dominated; when participants were high cognitive involved, analytical processing dominated.