Describing sets in terms of a two-valued variable, either value can be chosen: exam results may be referred to by pass rates or fail rates. What determines such framing choices? Building on work by ...McKenzie and colleagues on reference points in the production and interpretation of framed information, we investigate two determinants of frame choice. One is that speakers tend to focus on the component that has increased vis-à-vis a previous state, the other is the tendency to choose the component larger than 50%. We propose to view reference points as pointing to different kinds of communicative relevance. Hence the use of the previous state and the 50% reference points by speakers is not just a function of the information, but is co-determined by a communicative cue in the context: the question being asked about this information. This line of thought is supported by two experiments containing items offering two-sided distribution information at two points in time. Our first experiment employs a static task, requiring a description of the most recent situation. The second experiment uses a dynamic task, asking participants to describe the development between the two time points. We hypothesize that in static tasks the component size is the strongest frame choice determinant, while in dynamic tasks frame choice is mainly driven by whether a component has increased. The experiments consist of 16 different scenarios, both with symmetrical contrasts (i.e.,
dogs
vs.
cats
) and with asymmetrical ones (i.e.,
winning
vs.
losing
). Both experiments support the hypotheses. In the static task, the size effect is the only consistent effect; in the dynamic task, the effect of direction of change is much larger than that of size. This pattern of differences between size and change effects applies across symmetrical and asymmetrical contrasts. Our experiments shed light on cognitive and communicative regularities involved in the production of framed messages: people do tend to prefer larger and increasing components when choosing a frame, but the relative strength of both these preferences depends on the communicative task.
Introduction Pension participants need appropriate support when making (complex) pension decisions. Grounded in Fuzzy-Trace Theory, we argue that suitable decisions require participants to ...(accurately) understand meaningful differences between decision alternatives. Based on this, we investigated the effectiveness of different types of decision support for the decision when to retire. Methods We conducted two experiments among participants of four Dutch pension funds (Study 1: N = 2,328, Study 2: N = 500) on the effectiveness of three different types of decision support: (a) a traditional pros and cons text, (b) a Value Clarification Method (VCM), and (c) testimonials. Results The studies showed mixed results. In the first study, we found an activating effect of the VCM and the testimonials: participants who received one of these two types of decision support were more likely to visit a web page with additional information. In the second study, we found no differences between the three types of decision support. Conclusion We discuss possible explanations for the effects found, as well as implications for future (research on) pension decision support.
Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) provide voting recommendations to millions of people. As these voting recommendations are based on users' answers to attitude questions, the framing of these ...questions can have far-reaching consequences. The current study reports on a field experiment in which the framing of the header above VAA statements (N = 17) was manipulated (condition 1: no header; condition 2: a right-wing header, e.g., finance; condition 3: a left-wing header, e.g., nature and environment). Visitors of a VAA developed for Utrecht, the fourth largest municipality in the Netherlands, were randomly guided to one of the versions of the tool in which the header type was varied. Results (based on Nrespondents = 27,404) show that providing a header (left-wing or right-wing) leads to more left-wing answers as compared a condition where there is no header above the attitude statement. This effect, however, is only observed for respondents with lower levels of political sophistication.
Background
Understanding consumers’ interpretation of allergy information is crucial for effective food safety policies. We evaluated consumer understanding of allergy information on foods in ...controlled, experimental studies.
Method
Using 18 packaged foods, we evaluated consumer understanding of information about allergens in two experiments: First, a comparison of foods with no stated allergen versus allergen as a stated ingredient versus a precautionary allergen label (PAL); second, a comparison of three common variants of PAL. In each experiment, consumers with and without self‐reported food allergy were asked to estimate the risk of allergic reaction and to rate the comprehensibility of the allergen information. In the second experiment, consumers were also asked which form of PAL they preferred.
Results
Risk of reaction was assessed as high and low for foods with the allergen stated as ingredient, or without any mention of allergen. However, risk assessment for PAL varied and was judged as higher by non‐allergic than allergic participants (82% vs. 58%, p < .001). Understanding of risk associated with PAL also varied by health literacy (p < .001). Both allergic and non‐allergic consumers judged all forms of allergy information to be unclear, especially products with no allergy information for non‐allergic consumers. Products with a ‘Produced in a Factory’ PAL were perceived as less risky than ‘May contain’ or ‘Traces of’ PALs (p < .001), less than 40% of participants judged PAL information to be comprehensible, and participants preferred ‘May contain’ over the other PALs.
Conclusion
Both allergic and non‐allergic consumers find allergen information difficult to interpret on packaged foods and misunderstand PAL, incorrectly distinguishing different risk levels for different PAL wording. Clearer allergy information guidelines are called for, and the use of only one PAL wording is recommended.
Background
Allergen information on product labels is crucial in food allergy management, though inadequacy in current labelling practices is one of the major causes for accidental reactions upon ...consuming prepacked food products.
Objective
This study analyses current status of communicating allergen information on food labels and provides practical recommendations for improving the label format based on communication theory.
Methods
Product labels (N 288) of seven food categories from private label products and brands were obtained at three retailers in the Netherlands. Information regarding the 14 EU‐regulated allergens was evaluated by the frequency of emphasizing allergens in the ingredient list, use of precautionary allergen labelling (PAL), icons and an allergen information section. Effectiveness of communication was assessed evaluating readability and findability of information on allergens using principles of Gestalt and Cognitive Load theories.
Results
As requested by EU regulation 1169/2011, emphasizing allergens in the ingredient list was almost 100%, all other presentations of information on allergens on labels was highly diverse. A separate allergen information section was present on most private label products. This section could, but not necessarily did, repeat allergens from the ingredient list and/or give a PAL. Brands often provided a PAL at the end of the ingredient list. Part of the products displayed an icon at different locations of the label. Label background, a lack of cohesion and variation in location of topics hamper the identification of relevant information on allergens by (allergic) consumers. Recommendations include a standardized order for mandatory and voluntary topics on the label and a separate allergen information section.
Conclusion and clinical relevance
Overall, consumers encounter a wide and inconsistent range in ways of presentation of allergen information on labels. Standardization according to basic design principles can improve usability and support safe food purchases for allergic consumers.
Online Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are survey-like instruments that help citizens to shape their political preferences and compare them with those of political parties. Especially in ...multi-party democracies, their increasing popularity indicates that VAAs play an important role in opinion formation for citizens, as well as in the public debate prior to elections. Hence, the objectivity and transparency of VAAs are crucial. In the design of VAAs, many choices have to be made. Extant research in survey methodology shows that the seemingly arbitrary choice to word questions positively (e.g., 'The city council should allow cars into the city centre') or negatively ('The city council should ban cars from the city centre') systematically affects the answers. This asymmetry in answers is in line with work on negativity bias in other areas of linguistics and psychology. Building on these findings, this study investigated whether question polarity also affects the answers to VAA statements. In a field experiment (N = 31,112) during the Dutch municipal elections we analysed the effects of polarity for 16 out of 30 VAA statements with a large variety of linguistic contrasts. Analyses show a significant effect of question wording for questions containing a wide range of implicit negations (such as 'forbid' vs. 'allow'), as well as for questions with explicit negations (e.g., 'not'). These effects of question polarity are found especially for VAA users with lower levels of political sophistication. As these citizens are an important target group for Voting Advice Applications, this stresses the need for VAA builders to be sensitive to wording choices when designing VAAs. This study is the first to show such consistent wording effects not only for political attitude questions with implicit negations in VAAs, but also for political questions containing explicit negations.
Voting Advice Applications are online tools that provide users with a voting advice based on their answers to a set of political attitude questions. This study investigated to what extent VAA users ...understand the questions that lead to the voting advice, and what search and response behaviour they expose in case of comprehension difficulties. Two studies were conducted to investigate these issues: a cognitive interviewing study among 60 VAA users during the Dutch municipal elections in the city of Utrecht, and a statistical analysis of all answers provided by 357,858 users who accessed one of the 34 municipal VAAs during these same elections. Results of the two studies show a coherent picture: difficult concepts (e.g., tax names or municipal jargon), geographical locations (e.g., reference to a specific street), and vague quantifying terms (e.g., “more”) all complicate the question. In case of comprehension difficulties, Study 1 shows that VAA users make little effort to solve their problems, for example by looking up difficult terms on the Internet. Instead, they draw inferences about what the question might mean and proceed to answer nonetheless. These are often neutral or no opinion answers, which seems to suggest that the meanings of those options are confounded. In Study 2, however, we found that the choice for either a neutral or no opinion response is not accidental: semantic meaning problems often result in no opinion answers, whereas pragmatic problems are related to neutral responses. We discuss the implications of these findings for survey theory and practice.
When describing sets or entities in terms of a two-valued variable, one may choose either value to do the job. For instance, the success of a medical treatment may be described in terms of its ...survival rate (i.e. in a positive frame) or in terms of its mortality rate (the negative frame). Psychological studies have shown that the frame, or profile as we prefer to call it, influences the evaluations of readers: positively profiled objects are evaluated more positively than negatively profiled ones. This article analyzes the communicative mechanisms behind profile production and interpretation. It suggests two pragmatic inference rules to be at work: a heuristic called Argumentative Orientation, and a Manner implicature based on markedness differences.
Data from six experiments with discourse completion tasks show consistent effects of Argumentative Orientation and Markedness. Argumentative Orientation accounts for the tendency for speakers to choose the profile in line with the conclusion one wants to draw and for hearers to interpret the profile accordingly. The strength of the implicated Argumentative Orientation is further modified by markedness inferences, stemming from whether the marked or unmarked profile for this particular pair and context is chosen. A so-called Marked Skewness effect produces a stronger Argumentative Orientation for the marked member of the opposition.
For decades, survey researchers have known that respondents give different answers to attitude questions worded positively (X is good. Agree-Disagree), negatively (X is bad. Agree-Disagree) or on a ...bipolar scale (X is bad-good). This makes survey answers hard to interpret, especially since findings on exactly how the answers are affected are conflicting. In the current paper, we present twelve studies in which the effect of question polarity was measured for a set of thirteen contrastive adjectives. In each study, the same adjectives were used so the generalizability of wording effects across studies could be examined for each word pair. Results show that for five of the word pairs an effect of question wording can be generalized. The direction of these effects are largely consistent: respondents generally give the same answers to positive and bipolar questions, but they are more likely to disagree with negative questions than to agree with positive questions or to choose the positive side of the bipolar scale. In other words, respondents express their opinions more positively when the question is worded negatively. Even though answers to the three wording alternatives sometimes differ, results also show that reliable answers can be obtained with all three wording alternatives. So, for survey practice, these results suggest that all three wording alternatives may be used for attitude measurement.
In decision-making people react differently to positive wordings than to negatives, which may be caused by negativity bias: a difference in emotional force of these wordings. Because emotions are ...assumed to be activated more strongly in one's mother tongue, we predict a Foreign Language Effect, being that such framing effects are larger in a native language than in a foreign one. In two experimental studies (N = 475 and N = 503) we tested this prediction for balanced and unbalanced second language users of Spanish and English and for three types of valence framing effects. In Study 1 we observed risky-choice framing effects and attribute framing effects, but these were always equally large for native and foreign-language speakers. In our second study, we added a footbridge dilemma to the framing materials. Only for this task we did observe a Foreign Language Effect, indicating more utilitarian choices when the dilemma is presented in L2. Hence, across two studies, we find no Foreign Language Effect for three types of valence framing but we do find evidence for such an effect in a moral decision task. We discuss several alternative explanations for these results.
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