Adonis Diaries

Huge emotional differences: Glossing or framing questions, demands, options

You live in small town and there are about 600 suffering from an epidemic. The team of epidemic-control strategists is surveying the town for the best option they prefer for the actions. Four options are presented:

1. Choice A: Save 200 cases

2. Choice B: 33% chance all 600 will survive and 66% chance that no one will survive

3. Choice C: 400 dies

4. Choice D: 33% no one will die and 66% all will die.

What is your choice?

Probably you picked choice D.

Suppose you were given only option A and B. You probably selected choice A. No brainer: 200 in the hand is better than 600 on the tree.

Suppose you were presented with choices C and D? You probably selected choice D. Why?

Rationally, all 4 choices are identical in outcome, if probabilities are pretty correct, but your did selected certain choices. Why?

1. The difference in the framing of options was by changing the term life with death.

Negative connotations strike more powerful chords in our emotional worldview. We feel we had experienced far more sad, frustrating, painful moments and event in our survival process than we experienced happy and satisfying moments (and quickly forgotten to boot it)

Bad happenings are immeasurably higher in frequency and worse in consequences. This realization cannot improve our state of mind that tomorrow is going to be a “good day”

We are the descendants  of the cautious people, the luckier kinds, those who survived most of the bad happenings before they gave birth to a fresh bunch of descendants.

2. The intuitive, automatic and direct decision has a soft spot for the plausible stories.

3. We have this loss aversion bias in our genes.

Another example:

You are selecting for less fattening food. One jar says: 99% Fat Free and the other one is labeled only 1% fat. Which jar do you tend to select?

And yet, the two jars are identical in fat content.

Even if jar A says 91% fat free compared to Jar B of 2% fat, most probably you’ll pick jar A.

The term Glossing is the popular word for the technical term of Framing a questions, demands, options…

Your mother tells you:

1. The trash can is filled.

2. Could you please empty the can?

Which demand is more readily acceptable and sounds more musical to your ears?