Effects of framing, perspective taking, and perspective (affective focus) on choice

Two studies explored individual differences in perspective taking and perspective as moderators of risky choice framing effects. Study 1 (N = 230) showed perspective taking moderates framing among women. Study 2 (N = 256) experimentally manipulated two perspectives: a focus on feelings was expected to increase the framing effect; a focus on thoughts was expected to decrease it. Given men’s lower emotional reactivity, we expected the affective focus would magnify framing effects among men, as they appear less likely to spontaneously consider how they would feel. This was supported in follow-up analyses of the five-way interaction of frame, gender, feel, cognitive and affective perspective taking. Findings suggest that larger framing effects seen for women in previous research may be due to differences in whether one spontaneously considers how one would feel, that is, to individual differences in affective perspective taking.