Self-framing of risky choice

Previous research on framing effects has largely focused on how choice information framed by external sources influences the response of a decision maker. This research examined how decision makers framed choice options and how the hedonic tone of self-framing influenced their risk preference. By using pie charts and a complementary sentence-completion task in Experiment 1, participants were able to interpret and frame the expected choice outcomes themselves before making a choice between a sure option and a gamble in either a life-death or a monetary problem. Each of these self-frames (phrases) was then rated by a group of independent judges in terms of its hedonic tone. The hedonic tone of self-frames was mostly positive and was more positive in the life-death than the monetary context, suggesting a motivational function of self-framing. However, positive outcomes were still more likely to be framed positively than negative outcomes. In Experiment 2, choice outcomes were depicted with a whole-pie chart instead of a pie slice in order to emphasize positive and negative outcomes equally. The results showed that the hedonic tone of self-framing was still largely positive and more positive in the life domain than the monetary domain. However, compared to Experiment 1, the risk preference in the life-death domain was reversed, showing an outcome salience effect: when the pie-slice chart emphasized only survival outcomes, participants were more risk taking under positive hedonic frames whereas when the whole-pie chart depicted both survival and mortality outcomes, they became risk averse under positive frames. In sum, self-framing reflected a positive bias in encoding risk information and affected the risk preference of the decision maker. Like the tone of voice used in communication, the hedonic tone of self-framing, either positive or negative, can affect risk perception of a choice problem. Copyright (C) 2003 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.