Out of sight – out of mind? Information acquisition patterns in risky choice framing

• Authors: Michael Schulte-Mecklenbeck , Anton Kühberger
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

We investigate whether risky choice framing, i.e., the preference of a sure over an equivalent risky option when choosing among gains, and the reverse when choosing among losses, depends on redundancy and density of information available in a task. Redundancy, the saliency of missing information, and density, the description of options in one or multiple chunks, was manipulated in a matrix setup presented in MouselabWeb. On the choice level we found a framing effect only in setups with non-redundant information. On the process level outcomes attracted more acquisitions than probabilities, irrespective of redundancy. A dissociation between acquisition behavior and choice calls for a critical discussion of the limits of process-tracing measures for understanding and predicting choices in decision making tasks.

Keywords

EN

framing effect; process-tracing; mouselab

• Publisher: Committee for Psychological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Polish Psychological Bulletin
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 45
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 21-28

Contributors

author

Michael Schulte-Mecklenbeck

• Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzeallee 94, D-14195 Berlin, Fax: [phone], Phone: [phone]
• Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich, Switzerland

author

Anton Kühberger

• Dept. of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Hellbrunnerstr. 34, 5020 Salzburg, Austria