Cognitive reappraisal reduces the susceptibility to the framing effect in economic decision making

Recent studies have suggested that emotions play an important role in the susceptibility to the framing effect (i.e., decisions change depending on the description of the same outcomes as gains or losses). These suggestions raise the question of whether emotion regulation would reduce the susceptibility to framing. We used a neuroeconomic gambling task in which outcomes of decisions were framed as gains or losses, and instructed the participants to use cognitive reappraisal (i.e., reformulating the meaning of a situation in order to reduce its emotional impact) or expressive suppression (i.e., inhibiting behaviors associated with emotions) in order to modulate their emotions during the task. We found that in comparison to suppression, reappraisal reduced the framing effect. The use of reappraisal during the decision task was associated with increased positive affect, and decreased negative affect immediately after the task. We suggest that cognitive reappraisal reduces the susceptibility to framing by effectively regulating the emotions associated with the decision frames. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.