Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

We examined whether the classical framing effect observedwith the Asian Disease problem could be reversed when peoplemake decisions from experience. Ninety-five universitystudents were randomly allocated to one of three conditions:Description, Sampling (where the participants were allowed tosample through the outcomes presented as a pack of cards) andInteractive (where the participants were invited to spread outall possible outcomes in a sample) and made three gain-framedchoices and three loss-framed choices, with two filler tasksafter the first three choices. The results revealed a significantinteraction effect between framing and choice condition. In theDescription choice condition, participants were more risk-seeking with loss-framed problems. This pattern was reversedin the Sampling choice condition where participants were morerisk-seeking with gain frames. Finally, the Interactive choicecondition resulted in a classic pattern of framing effect,whereby people were more risk averse in the domain of gains.