With limited information processing capacity, people often rely on heuristics, or rule of thumb, to make decisions. In most situations, these heuristics are useful, however, it is possible to result in systematic biases. One of the biases is framing effect, which refers to the phenomenon that the framing message significantly affects how decision maker infer meaning and hence understand the situation. When a specific attribute is framed in positive or negative terms and result in different decision outome, the attribute framing effect occurs. Although a large amount of studies on framing effect has been cumulated, related works on debiasing the framing effect is limited. Based on past literatures, this study proposed a comprehensive framework to suggest and investigate the effect of debiasing strategies, which were developed in terms of sources of bias including individual difference, imcomplete external information and insufficient cognitive effort of decision makers. Four experitmts were conducted in this study. First, the subjective knowledge, objective knowledge and need for cognition are considered as the possible moderator of attribute framing effect. The second experiment aimed to understand that whether the completeness of decision problem and amounts of attributes affect the phemenon of attribute framing effect. The debiasing effect of warning and elaboration were examind in the third and fourth experiments respectively. The results suggested that both subjective and objective knowledge as well as participants¡¦ need for cognition did not moderate the attribute framing effect. Specifically, the attribute framing effect is observed in all groups regardless of the individual differences. Second, the attribute framing effect disappeared when subjects were provided with positive and negative messages simultaneously. Third, attribute framing effect occurred for subjects in one attribute, three and five attribute conditions. That is, one attribute is sufficient for the framing effect to be observed. Moreover, there is an inverted U relationship between subjects¡¦ attitude and the amount of negative attributes. The framing effect was weakened but is not eliminated when the participants were provided with warnings. In addition, weak warning can prevent subjects of high level need for cognition from framing effect, whereas strong warning can eliminate subjects¡¦ framing effect successfully for group of low level need for cognition. Finally, elaboration is the most effective debiasing strategy in this study to eliminate the framing effect.

Seminario para optar al grado de Ingeniero Comercial, Mención Administración / Los procesos mentales bajo los cuales las personas toman decisiones, han sido durante décadas motivo de amplio estudio, tanto por psicólogos, sociólogos, economistas, científicos y hasta matemáticos. Todos los campos se han visto involucrados en descubrir una interrogante, que al parecer aún no tiene respuesta absoluta. Lo que sí se puede observar, es que el ser humano no siempre responde a las normas racionales de conducta, siendo más bien impulsado mayormente por aspectos subjetivos como percepciones, intuiciones y atajos mentales. De esto, es que nace nuestro interés de conocer y entender, cómo este tipo de aspectos influye en el proceso de toma de decisiones, específicamente como el framing, aplicado a la forma en la que se plantean distintas ofertas, puede afectar la percepción que los consumidores tienen de éstas. Siguiendo con lo anterior, los principales objetivos de esta investigación fueron los de comprobar que las ofertas expresadas en porcentajes dificultan el entendimiento de lo que realmente implican, además de evaluar el error u omisión de cálculo del precio unitario propuesto por las ofertas, en la percepción de conveniencia y preferencia. Para el desarrollo de lo anterior, el trabajo se divide en dos partes, un pre test y un test final. Este último cuenta con 3 experimentos, mediante los cuales se buscó comprobar los objetivos antes planteados, a partir de una comparación entre dos tipos de ofertas (oferta en cantidad vs oferta en precio), ambas expresadas en porcentaje, fueran estas económicamente equivalentes o no (en términos de precio unitario). Mediante dos tipos de análisis, se midieron variables como la conveniencia percibida e intención de compra. Los resultados lograron, en gran parte, confirmar las hipótesis generadas. A grandes rasgos, se pudo evidenciar que bajo escenarios tanto positivos como negativos, los individuos presentaron dificultades para advertir el efecto de las ofertas en el precio unitario de los productos asociados, y que además, al enfrentarse a ofertas económicamente equivalentes (mismo precio unitario) expresadas en porcentaje, estos tendían a basar su elección en la magnitud del porcentaje. Este estudio, muestra el impacto que tendría el framing, tanto en la toma de decisiones de las personas, como en la forma en que las empresas, como supermercados y retail, presentan sus ofertas para manejar las ventas de ciertos productos y marcas. Finalmente, es importante mencionar la existencia de ciertas limitaciones de este estudio. Dentro de éstas, se incluye el hecho de que la naturaleza de la muestra fue no probabilística por conveniencia, los participantes eran muy similares entre ellos, el contexto bajo el cual se desarrolló el experimento difería del real escenario en el que las personas se enfrentan a decisiones y además se testeó sólo un tipo de producto. Aún así, esto no invalida la investigación, logrando entregar un primer acercamiento a lo que podría ser un estudio más amplio.

Internet has become a new form of mass media since its commercialization in early 1990¡¦s. While the transaction platform moves from bricks-and-motar to Internet, potential factors that influence consumers¡¦ purchase decisions changed. Because they cannot touch the product and interact with sales person, Internet buyers can only make decisions based on information presented on web pages. Under this circumstance, how the presentation of information such as advertisement and product description influence consumers¡¦ buying decision is an important issue. When the information is presented in different ways, people might make biased decisions. This study conducts four laboratory experiments which aim to investigate two decision biases in e-commerce context: framing effect and ancoring effect. The first two experiments focus on the framing effect and the last two experiments focus on the anchoring effect. Framing effect refers to the situation in which people¡¦s buying intention is influenced by different framing messages. Anchoring effect center on the situation in which people¡¦s price estimates are influenced by different anchor points presented in web pages. Three different kinds of framing messages which are formed by combining the attribute framing, goal framing and risky choice framing message and positive and negative presentation are considered in the first two experiments. Moreover, the subjects were assigned into two groups in different level of intrinsic self-relevence to understand whether it plays the moderating role in framing effect. In anchoring effect, in addition to the influence of high and low anchor points on subjects¡¦ price estimates, we also consider the moderating role of the operation of anchor points (one-way/two way), the reinforcement of anchor points (normal/intensified), and the relevancy between anchor and target (relevant/unrelevant). The results indicated that attribute framing effect is stable and is not influenced by subjects¡¦ level of intrinsic self-relevance, whereas the occurrence of goal framing effect and risky choice framing effect depends on the participants¡¦ level of intrinsic self-relevance. For subjects low in intrinsic self-relevance are more influenced by framing message and thus results in different buying intention or choices than those high in intrinsic self-relevance. This study also test and verify the robustness of anchoring effect. Estimaes made by participants in high and low anchor conditions is significantly different no matter the anchor is manipulated in one-way or two-way. In addition, the result of anchoring experiment supports the argument that the relevancy between anchor and target is important for the occurrence of anchoring effect. The moderating effect of anchor reinceforcement depends on the anchor was operated in one-way or two way condition. Anchoring effect is stable despite that the anchor is manipulated in normal or intensified condition when the anchor is manipulated in two-way. On the other hand, when the anchoring effect is manipulated in one-way condition, the anchor reinceforcement plays the role the moderator. Anchoring effect can be observed only when the anchor point is reinforced by appearing for three times. This study serves as a foundation for future study in e-commerce area. The procedures and experimental designs in this study can be either replicated or modified with a different sample to gather further evidence for the results discovered. Further, it can benefit practitioners in improving the design of e-commerce interfaces in real world applications.

O objetivo deste estudo é verificar se os consumidores são suscetíveis aos efeitos do framing de promoções de preço, ou seja, se descontos equivalentes mostrados em porcentagem ou em reais têm atratividades díspares entre os consumidores, em diferentes tipos de produto. O framing é um conceito discutido por Tversky e Kahneman (1979, 1981, 1986) e Kahneman (2003a) ao demonstrarem que a formulação dos problemas de decisão pode afetar nossos julgamentos cognitivos e, portanto, nossas preferências. Os objetivos específicos deste trabalho são verificar quais tipos de promoções mostram-se mais atrativos para diferentes tipos de produto (alto valor e baixo valor); se variáveis demográficas, como \"renda\" e \"escolaridade\", exercem algum efeito nas preferências pelo tipo de promoção; e, se as promoções têm impactos variados em diferentes marcas. O método utilizado consiste em pesquisa descritiva, de abordagem quantitativa, a partir de um experimento com hipóteses, aplicado em 400 consumidores da cidade de São Paulo durante janeiro e fevereiro de 2013. O questionário utilizado teve como base os trabalhos de Chen et al. (1998) e Gendall et al. (2006). Os resultados apontam que para o produto de baixo valor (biscoito recheado), a forma de promoção é indiferente para o consumidor (na forma \"10% de desconto\" ou \"De R$ 1,71 por R$ 1,54\"); e que para o produto de alto valor (notebook), o desconto em reais parece ser mais atrativo. Estas conclusões estão de acordo com o trabalho de Gendall et al. (Ibid.). Não foram encontradas diferenças significativas nas preferências dos diversos grupos de renda, escolaridade e outras variáveis demográficas analisadas (sexo, idade, estado civil e região da cidade onde mora). / The objective of this study is to verify whether consumers are susceptible to price promotions framing effects - more specifically, if showing the same discount as percentage or in monetary terms for different products alters consumer preferences. Framing is a concept described by Tversky and Kahneman (1979, 1981, 1986) and Kahneman (2003a), who demonstrate that the framing of decision problems can affect our cognitive judgment and therefore our preferences. The specific objectives of this study are: to verify which type of price promotions are more attractive to high price and low price products; to access if demographic variables such as \"income\" and \"educational level\" present any effects on consumer promotion preferences; and to examine if promotions have different impacts on different brands. The method consists in a quantitative descriptive survey, applied with 400 consumers in São Paulo, Brazil, between January and February 2013. The questionnaire was based on Chen et al. (1998) and Gendall et al. (2006) work. Results show that for the low price product (stuffed cookie), the consumer is indifferent to the promotion type (\"10% off\" or \"From R$ 1,71 to R$ 1,54\"); and for the high price product (notebook), discount in monetary terms seems to be more attractive. These conclusions are in line with the findings of Gendall et al (Ibid). No significant difference in preference was found between different income groups, educational level and other demographic variables (gender, age, marital status and neighborhood).

This paper contains two parts. First, we study the decoy effect (especially for the compromise decoy effect) by the experiments where the subjects face the trade-off of inflation and unemployment. As earlier studies show that the compromise decoy is not good as dominated decoy, we try to explore factors of determining compromise effect. Second, we investigate the factors affecting the subjects¡¦ preference over unemployment and inflation. In Part 1, we explore how to enhance the compromise decoy effect by changing the relative location among target, compromise, and decoy. It emerges that the distance between target and decoy, the distance between target and competitor, and the existence of the dominated decoy all affect the size of the compromise decoy effect. In Part 2, we explore the relation of subjects¡¦ preference over inflation and unemployment and their personal characteristics, such as location of hometown, the attitude toward risk, political participation, ideology, household income, knowledge of related terminology, whether to take related course or not, and friends¡¦ and relatives¡¦ unemployment status, and so on. Though the direction of effects is in line with our conjecture, the level of significance is not high enough.

Based on the Prospect Theory by Kahneman and Tversky (1979) and the Impression Formation Theory by Fiske and Neuberg (1990), this research examines decision makers¡¦ information attention for subjects who are required to judge under framing. The eye-tracking technology is applied to evaluate decision makers¡¦ information attention. The results indicate that, as predicted by the Prospect Theory, the effect of framing is observed in both positive and negative framed conditions. Overall, the study finds that subjects in negative frames exert more effort in information attention than those in positive frames. Concerning the effect of the need for cognition (NC) trait in negative framing conditions, the finding shows that subjects who have a higher level of NC exert more effort in information attention than the low NC subjects. In addition, subjects with high a higher level of math ability focus exert more attentional effort on possible outcomes and probabilities in positive framing but not in negative framing. Finally, the result shows that there is no relationship between information attention and the framing effect, indicating that the framing effect is resilient to the influence of information attention effort induced by both the personality traits like NC and the mechanism like deep thought. Collectively, these results pave the way for future research to study cognitive processes under framing so that we can understand how different information representations may increase or lessen the effect of framing.

O objetivo deste estudo é verificar se os consumidores são suscetíveis aos efeitos do framing de promoções de preço, ou seja, se descontos equivalentes mostrados em porcentagem ou em reais têm atratividades díspares entre os consumidores, em diferentes tipos de produto. O framing é um conceito discutido por Tversky e Kahneman (1979, 1981, 1986) e Kahneman (2003a) ao demonstrarem que a formulação dos problemas de decisão pode afetar nossos julgamentos cognitivos e, portanto, nossas preferências. Os objetivos específicos deste trabalho são verificar quais tipos de promoções mostram-se mais atrativos para diferentes tipos de produto (alto valor e baixo valor); se variáveis demográficas, como \"renda\" e \"escolaridade\", exercem algum efeito nas preferências pelo tipo de promoção; e, se as promoções têm impactos variados em diferentes marcas. O método utilizado consiste em pesquisa descritiva, de abordagem quantitativa, a partir de um experimento com hipóteses, aplicado em 400 consumidores da cidade de São Paulo durante janeiro e fevereiro de 2013. O questionário utilizado teve como base os trabalhos de Chen et al. (1998) e Gendall et al. (2006). Os resultados apontam que para o produto de baixo valor (biscoito recheado), a forma de promoção é indiferente para o consumidor (na forma \"10% de desconto\" ou \"De R$ 1,71 por R$ 1,54\"); e que para o produto de alto valor (notebook), o desconto em reais parece ser mais atrativo. Estas conclusões estão de acordo com o trabalho de Gendall et al. (Ibid.). Não foram encontradas diferenças significativas nas preferências dos diversos grupos de renda, escolaridade e outras variáveis demográficas analisadas (sexo, idade, estado civil e região da cidade onde mora). / The objective of this study is to verify whether consumers are susceptible to price promotions framing effects - more specifically, if showing the same discount as percentage or in monetary terms for different products alters consumer preferences. Framing is a concept described by Tversky and Kahneman (1979, 1981, 1986) and Kahneman (2003a), who demonstrate that the framing of decision problems can affect our cognitive judgment and therefore our preferences. The specific objectives of this study are: to verify which type of price promotions are more attractive to high price and low price products; to access if demographic variables such as \"income\" and \"educational level\" present any effects on consumer promotion preferences; and to examine if promotions have different impacts on different brands. The method consists in a quantitative descriptive survey, applied with 400 consumers in São Paulo, Brazil, between January and February 2013. The questionnaire was based on Chen et al. (1998) and Gendall et al. (2006) work. Results show that for the low price product (stuffed cookie), the consumer is indifferent to the promotion type (\"10% off\" or \"From R$ 1,71 to R$ 1,54\"); and for the high price product (notebook), discount in monetary terms seems to be more attractive. These conclusions are in line with the findings of Gendall et al (Ibid). No significant difference in preference was found between different income groups, educational level and other demographic variables (gender, age, marital status and neighborhood).

Dans cette thèse, nous proposons une perspective méthodologique sur le double rôle du langage dans la rationalité économique, les utilisations de langage par les économistes pour la théoriser et les utilisations de langage par les agents économiques pour l’exprimer, pour clarifier trois principales questions (et leurs connexions) qui sous-tendent les débats entre économie comportementale et économie standard : le problème de l’unification théorique vis-à-vis des trois dimensions de la rationalité économique, la question de l’interdisciplinarité entre économie et Psychologie, et le problème du positif/normatif dans les modèles de comportements individuels. Concernant le problème du positif/normatif et le rôle du langage dans les comportements des agents économiques, notre intention est de fournir, au-delà de la simple clarification, une critique constructive des contributions de l’économie standard comme de l’économie comportementale. Suivant la position de l’enchevêtrement du philosophe Hilary Putnam et des philosophes-économistes Vivian Walsh et Amartya Sen, il est soutenu que l’économie tant standard que comportementale propose une articulation insatisfaisante des dimensions positive et normative dans les modèles de comportements individuels; et que la reconnaissance de l’enchevêtrement de faits, de valeurs et de conventions peut être théoriquement et empiriquement fructueuse. Prêter attention au rôle du langage dans les comportements des agents économiques montre parfois qu’un comportement apparemment irrationnel peut en fait être défendu comme rationnel; c’est pourquoi nous soutenons que, et montrons comment, l'axiome implicite - connu sous le nom d’invariance à la description - dans les modèles standards de comportements individuels empêchant l’influence du langage doit être affaibli (mais pas complètement supprimé), contrairement aux positions de la plupart des économistes standards et comportementaux. / In this dissertation, we propose a methodological perspective on the twofold role of language in economic rationality, economists’ uses of language to theorize it and economic agent’s uses of language to express it, can clarify three main issues (and their connections), underlying the behavioral versus standard economics debates: the issue of the theoretical unification regarding the three dimensions of economic rationality, the issue of interdisciplinarity between economics and Psychology and the positive/normative issue within models of individual behaviors. Regarding the positive/normative issue and the role of language in the behaviors of economic agents, the intention is to provide a constructive criticism of contributions from behavioral as well as standard economists. Following the entanglement thesis of philosopher Hilary Puntam and philosophers-economists Vivian Walsh and Amartya Sen, it is argued that both standard and behavioral economists propose an unsatisfying articulation between the positive and normative dimensions of models of individual behaviors; and that recognizing the entanglement of facts, values and conventions can actually be theoretically and empirically fruitful. Paying some attention to the role of language in the behaviors of economic agents may sometimes show that a seemingly irrational behavior can in fact be defended as rational; hence we argue that, and show how, the implicit axiom -- known as ‘description invariance’ -- in standard models of individual behaviors preventing the influence of language needs to be weakened (though not dropped entirely), contrary to the positions of most behavioral and standard economists.

The main aim of the thesis was to investigate the effect of the use of a foreign language - in this case, English - on the strength of the framing effect in framing types that have not been studied in this respect before. According to the results, framing through the manipulation of emotionally charged keywords is indeed mitigated by the use of a foreign language. The main factors at play here are whether the respondent started learning the foreign language at an early age before the emotion-regulation systems were developed, and whether the respondent is accustomed to using the language routinely. Visual framing yielded the opposite results - in the absence of the keywords, only the effect of greater cognitive load remained for respondents completing the questionnaire in English, which magnified the framing bias. This effect was stronger for respondents whose English skills were weaker and who used English less. In the case of framing using the status quo, the results were inconclusive as there was a bias most likely caused by an inaccuracy in translation.

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