logic & reasoning
framing the epidemic
the same numbers, the same lives, described two ways, and your preference flips.
In 1981 Tversky and Kahneman ran a deceptively simple experiment that helped earn a Nobel Prize and founded the field of behavioural economics. Read the scenario, make your choice quickly and honestly, the way you actually would, then read it again.
an unusual disease is expected to kill 600 people. choose a programme.
Two responses have been prepared, and the scientific estimates of their consequences are exact.
- Programme A: exactly 200 people will be saved.
- Programme B: a one-third chance that all 600 are saved, and a two-thirds chance that no one is saved.
further reading
- the framing of decisions and the psychology of choice original paper
- framing effect wikipedia