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decision making
You accept risks more when they are presented as gains.
The framing of a decision as a 'save' versus a 'loss' shifts your tolerance for risk, even when the math is identical.
When participants are told a program will 'save 200 lives,' they prefer certainty. If told the same program will 'result in 400 deaths,' they suddenly gamble on high-variance options. Your risk appetite is a byproduct of the language used to describe the risk.
The label determines the choice.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Tversky and Kahneman (1981), The Framing of Decisions
- What the check found
- This is the 'Asian Disease Problem' from Tversky and Kahneman's 1981 paper, which is the foundational study for prospect theory regarding gain/loss framing.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.