| We often encounter the event depicted in a different way, resulting to different preference and even reversed in decision making, called framing effect. Living in the complicated social life, however, we can not merely affected by the current single frame.Research have found that previous frame will continue to affect the individual preference even in another frame, and the preference change from the loss(gain) frame to gain(loss)is actually asymmetry. Researcher demonstrated that individuals with different regulatory focus may response differently to the frame conversion due to the different flexibility when facing same events.This study intends to use three experiments to test our hypothesis on frame conversion from the perspective of regulatory focus.Experiment1 adopts a 2(frame order: gain-first/loss-second, loss-first/gain-second)×2(Time: Time1, Time2) mixed design. And the frame-order is between-subject variable and Time is within-subject variable. The dependent variable is the mean difference of preference in different frame-order conditions. The study prove that:(1) Among the three type of experimental materials, the main effect of framing effect is significant. Participants tend to prefer risky option in the negative frame and certainty option in the positive frame.(2) The main effect of frame-order is remarkable. Compared with gain-first/loss-second frame-order, under the frame-order condition of lose-first/gain-second, participants’ preference choice has just a little change. This evidence demonstrate that the conversion difficulty in negative frame is greater than the positive frame. And the negative frame have the attribute of sticky. This research also provides the basis for the subsequent research.Experiment 2 uses a 2(frame-order: gain-first/loss-second, loss-first/gain-second)×2(Time: Time1, Time2) × 2(trait regulatory focus: promotion, prevention) mixed design.The frame-order and trait regulatory focus are between-subject variables and the Time is within-subject variable. The mean preference difference framed in different order is viewed as the dependent variable. We aim to explore the difference on frame conversion difficulty between different trait regulatory focus individuals. The study demonstrate that participantswith promotion focus are greater than individuals with prevention focus in frame conversion difficulty no matter in the frame-order of gain-first/loss-second or loss-first/gain-second. Therefore, individuals with promotion focus are more likely to be influenced by external framework.Experiment 3 uses a 2(frame-order: gain-first/loss-second, loss-first/gain-second)×2(Time: Time1, Time2)×2(situational regulatory focus: promotion, prevention) mixed design. The frame-order and situational regulatory focus are between-subject variable and Time is within-subject variable. The mean preference difference framed in different order is viewed as the dependent variable. We aim to explore the difference on frame conversion difficulty between different situational regulatory focus individuals. The study demonstrate that participants with promotion focus are greater than individuals with prevention focus in frame conversion difficulty no matter in frame-order gain-first/loss-second or loss-first/gain-second. Therefore, individuals with promotion focus are more likely to be influenced by external framework.Research on framing effect had been broadly conducted since being put forward. But there is only a few studies focused on the frame conversion mechanism. This study initially to explore the individual difference on the frame conversion mechanism from the perspective of regulatory focus, attempting to further the current study on framing effect. |
