The interplay between the importance of a decision and emotion in decision-making

Decision-making literature has demonstrated that individuals’ preferences are strongly affected by the way in which choices are presented. This cognitive bias, termed the framing effect, is influenced by the importance of the possible outcomes that a decision can have. However, the direction of this influence remains poorly understood. The aim of this paper was to examine the role of the importance of a decision in framing susceptibility and to explore a potential mechanism underlying this influence. Our first study revealed that participants display a framing effect when their decision implies a high importance outcome, but resist framing manipulation when their decision implies a low importance outcome. Our second study confirmed that an increase in the importance of a decision is associated with increasing framing susceptibility. Moreover, a moderated mediation analysis revealed that the more a decision was important, the more the gain and loss frames aroused opposite emotions, and this accounted for the increase in framing susceptibility. The results of these two studies confirmed that an increase in the importance of a decision is associated with increasing framing susceptibility and suggest that this influence on framing susceptibility is underpinned by emotion. Implications and direction for future studies are discussed.

决策科学领域的既有研究表明，个体的偏好会显著受到选项呈现方式的影响。这一认知偏差（cognitive bias）被称为框架效应（framing effect），其强度受决策可能产生的结果重要性的调节。然而，该调节作用的方向仍未得到清晰阐释。本研究旨在考察决策重要性在框架易感性（framing susceptibility）中的作用，并探索该调节作用背后的潜在机制。第一项研究发现，当决策涉及高重要性结果时，被试会表现出框架效应；而当决策涉及低重要性结果时，被试则会抵制框架操纵。第二项研究证实，决策重要性的提升与框架易感性的增强呈正相关。此外，有调节的中介分析（moderated mediation analysis）结果显示，决策的重要性越高，获益框架与损失框架所唤起的情绪对立性越强，而这一过程正是框架易感性提升的核心成因。两项研究的结果共同证实，决策重要性的提升会增强个体的框架易感性，且该影响的内在机制为情绪唤起。本文最后讨论了本研究的理论启示与未来研究方向。