Reducing the Framing Effect in Older and Younger Adults by Encouraging Analytic Processing

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: The present study explored whether the framing effect could be reduced in older and younger adults using techniques that influenced the accessibility of information relevant to the decision-making processing. Accessibility was manipulated indirectly in Experiment 1 by having participants engage in concurrent tasks, and directly in Experiment 2, through an instructions manipulation that required participants to maintain a goal of analytic processing throughout the experimental trial. METHODS: We tested 120 older and 120 younger adults in Experiment 1. Participants completed 28 decision trials while concurrently either performing a probability calculation task or a memory task. In Experiment 2, we tested 136 older and 136 younger adults. Participants completed 48 decision trials after either having been instructed to "think like a scientist" or base decisions on "gut reactions." RESULTS: Results demonstrated that the framing effect was reduced in older and younger adults in the probability calculation task in Experiment 1 and under the "think like a scientist" instructions manipulation in Experiment 2. DISCUSSION: These results suggest that when information relevant to unbiased decision making was made more accessible, both older and younger adults were able to reduce susceptibility to the framing effect.

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