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One of the most contested questions in the social sciences is whether people behave rationally. A large body of work assumes that individuals do in fact make rational economic, political, and social decisions. Yet hundreds of experiments suggest that this is not the case. Framing effects constitute one of the most stunning and influential demonstrations of irrationality. The effects not only challenge the foundational assumptions of much of the social sciences (e.g., the existence of coherent preferences or stable attitudes), but also lead many scholars to adopt alternative approaches (e.g., prospect theory). Surprisingly, virtually no work has sought to specify the political conditions under which framing effects occur. I fill this gap by offering a theory and experimental test. I show how contextual forces (e.g., elite competition, deliberation) and individual attributes (e.g., expertise) affect the success of framing. The results provide insight into when rationality assumptions apply and, also, have broad implications for political psychology and experimental methods.
Are people rational? This question attracts more attention and engenders more controversy than perhaps any other in the social sciences-and for good reason. Rationality assumptions not only serve as the foundation for many analyses of economic, political, and social behavior but also form the basis for most conceptions of democratic responsiveness and competitive markets. Despite widespread application, however, a mass of empirical evidence suggests that people do not act rationally.
Framing effects constitute one of the most stunning and influential demonstrations of irrationality (Tversky and Kahneman 1987). A framing effect occurs when different, but logically equivalent, words or phrases cause individuals to alter their preferences. For example, people reject a policy program when told that it will result in 5% unemployment but prefer it when told that it will result in 95% employment. Framing effects violate a basic tenet of rational choice theory that individuals' preferences do not change from alternative ways of eliciting the same preference (e.g., preferences should not depend on whether the programs are described in terms of unemployment or employment).
Building on hundreds of framing effect experiments, many social scientists opt for models of decision-making that incorporate framing effects and reject rationality assumptions (e.g., prospect theory; see Tversky and Kahneman 1979). Examples within political science include studies of voting and public opinion,...