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Worse is bad: Divergent inferences from logically equivalent comparisons
1Department of Psychology.
Journal of Experimental Psychology. General
|September 13, 2021
Summary
How you frame comparisons impacts decisions. Even logically equivalent statements like "better than" vs. "worse than" yield different choices, especially for less favorable options.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Linguistics
- Behavioral Economics
Background:
- Comparisons can be stated in logically equivalent but linguistically different ways.
- Previous research on attribute framing has not fully explained the impact of these linguistic variations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how different comparison frames influence judgments and choices.
- To propose and test a novel "comparison framing" account based on linguistic markedness theory.
Main Methods:
- Conducted 11 studies (7 in main text, 4 in supplementary materials).
- Examined the effects of logically equivalent comparison frames on judgments and choices.
- Compared the proposed "comparison framing" account against "automatic valenced associations" and "leakage of information" accounts.
Main Results:
- Logically equivalent comparison frames significantly diverge in their effects on judgments and choices.
- These framing effects are asymmetric, impacting inferior items more than superior ones.
- The proposed "comparison framing" account provides a better fit for the data than previous models.
Conclusions:
- The linguistic structure of comparison frames, specifically adjective markedness, plays a crucial role in shaping decisions.
- Framing effects are not solely due to automatic associations or information leakage.
- Understanding comparison framing is essential for predicting and influencing consumer and individual choices.
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