| 其他摘要 | In such a world, understanding and improving decision making should be given more priority. Currently, the research on “how people understand decision making” has been most thorough, whereas the research on “how to improve decision making” is relatively backward. Behavioral scientists propose a “nudge” approach to improve people’s decisions. That is, making people’s decisions change in the expected direction by changing the ways options are presented to them. The framing effect can be regarded as an economical and effective means of nudge tool. For instance, the gain-loss framing effects found in risky choice and the attribute framing effects in multi-attribute choice have been widely used to change or improve people’s decisions. However, in the field of intertemporal and spatial choices, whether there is a framing effect that can play a role in improving decision-making is unknown.
Intertemporal and spatial choices are closely related. First, time and space are physically inextricably linked, and velocity can be used to connect the relationship between the two. For instance, the distance from the dormitory to the school can be described as a 1-kilometer walk or a 15-minute walk. The spatial choice problem can be transformed into intertemporal choice problem by using the conversion relation between temporal and spatial distance. Besides, models of choice used to understand intertemporal and spatial choices can be grouped into two broad classes: the “utility comparison” models (e.g., discounting models) and the “attribute-comparison” models (e.g., equate-to-differentiate model). Due to the different logical assumptions of the two classes of models, they have different mechanisms to explain the framing effect. According to the logic of the utility comparison models, a framing effect will be produced if framing can shift people’s judgment of the inequality relationship between two options’ overall utility across different frame conditions. While according to the attribute-comparison models, a framing effect will be produced if framing can shift people’s judgment of the inequality relationship between the different dimensional differences across different frame conditions. In this doctoral dissertation, three studies (12 experiments) were conducted to examine whether invariance-violating behavior (defined as the time-space framing effect) could be detected when the spatial-choice problem is described by space and time frame equivalently, and if so, how is this effect achieved.
In Study 1, by setting constant velocity, the “spatial distance” information in spatial choice was equivalent to the “temporal distance” information in intertemoral choice (e.g., the speed was set to “30 km/min”, “30 km” distance = “1 hour” distance), and a series of choice problems were constructed. In Substudies 1.1–1.3, we set different scenarios, frame equivalence conditions, choice construction, response style and experimental designs to explore the existence of the time-space framing effect. The overall results showed that people’s preference orders were significantly changed by using the time and space frames to describe the same choice problem, indicating that the time-space framing effect exists.
On the basis of Study 1, Study 2 added and performed an “intradimension
difference comparison” task (Substudies 2.1–2.3) and a “discount value difference comparison” task (Substudy 2.2) to test whether the equate-to-differentiate model and/or the discounting model could explain the time-space framing effect, and which of these two models is better supported by the data. The results showed that the equate-to-differentiate model could explain the time-space framing effect well regardless of whether it exists; however, this effect could not be explained by the discounting model.
In Study 3, by using the eye-tracking technology, we further investigated people’s dynamic process of decision making in space and time frame conditions, to analyze their decision strategy and use eye movement indicators to predict their choice and choice shift behavior. The results showed that, people were more likely adopt an attribute-based strategy when making decisions in spatial and intertemporal choice tasks; and the difference in information processing (fixation duration/frequency) between spatial/intertemporal and outcome dimensions, and the variation of that processing difference between dimensions under two frame conditions, can significantly predict people’s choice and choice shift behavior.
The time-space framing effect explored in this doctoral dissertation is a new framing effect by manipulating the frames across different domains, which also offers a novel approach for understanding intertemporal and spatial choices. This new form of choice architecture is created as a tool for the “nudge” toolbox, which is helpful to guide or improve people’s decision-making. |
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