You're in the supermarket doing your weekly food shopping and you stop by the meat section. You're planning to make a delicious spaghetti bolognese and you need some minced beef for the recipe.
There are two options to choose from: one is labelled "80% lean" while the other is labelled "20% fat". Because you care about your health and like to eat healthy food, you take the minced beef labelled "80%" lean.
Congratulations! You've just fallen victim to the framing effect!
Life and death situation
Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman (1981) performed and experiment where participants were asked to choose between two treatments for 600 people affected by a deadly disease.
The first treatment was predicted to result in 400 deaths. The second treatment had a 33% chance that no-one would die, but a 66% chance that everyone would die.
It was presented to the participants either using positive framing, focusing on how many would live, or negative framing, focusing on how many would die.
72% of participants chose the first treatment when it was presented positively, but only 22% when it was framed negatively.
The dihydrogen monoxide hoax
In a 1983 April Fool's edition of the Durand Express it was reported that "dihydrogen monoxide" had been found in the city's water pipes, and warned that it was fatal if inhaled.
When the chemical is presented as shown above, the reaction can be strong. In 1997 a 14-year-old high schools student gathered 43 votes out of 50 to ban the chemical.
There have been several similarly extreme responses, even including politicians supporting a ban on the chemical.
The hoax, of course, is that dihydrogen monoxide is the chemical nomenclature for water! When presenting the facts about water differently, it sounds extremely dangerous, provoking a strong response.
What can we do about it?
Framing involves taking factual information and presenting it in a different form to trigger an emotional response.
Try to consider the logical implications of what's being asked. Often framing presents only a couple of options while in reality, more might exist.
Banner image by Bart Everson used under the CC-BY-2.0 license. Changes were made to the original.
Water image by avocadogirlfriend used under the CC-BY-2.0 license.
Other posts in the series: