Buying or Selling? A Study of Framing Effects and Investment Intentions.

This study explores whether news coverage of international transactions has any effect on public investment intentions by targeting pro-trade versus anti-trade characters as well as loss vs. gain frames (negativity bias). The study adopts a 2 x 2 survey-based experiment to investigate the framing effects of business news on investment intentions, as well as the influence of preexisting schemas. The findings suggest that individual American's investment decision is quite rational and competent. Even thought people subject their investment intentions to both the mediated communication references and their predispositions about free trade and international trade, they do not give these factors the same weight, but adjust them in terms of different situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]