학술논문
Narrative framing may increase human suboptimal choice behavior.
Document Type
Academic Journal
Author
Bodily JS; Department of Psychology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA. jbodily@aum.edu.; Auburn University at Montgomery, 7400 East Drive Montgomery, Montgomery, AL, 36117, USA. jbodily@aum.edu.; Bodily KD; Department of Psychology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA.; The Learning Tree, LLC, Tallassee, AL, USA.; Southern RA; Department of Psychology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA.; Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA.; Baum EE; Department of Psychology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA.; Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, USA.; Edwards VM; Department of Psychology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA.; University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA.
Source
Publisher: Springer Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 101155056 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1543-4508 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 15434494 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Learn Behav Subsets: MEDLINE
Subject
Language
English
Abstract
Under certain conditions, multiple nonhuman species have been observed engaging in choice behavior that resulted in less food earned when compared to the amount of food that was available to be earned over the course of a session. This phenomenon is particularly strong in pigeons, but has also been observed in rats and nonhuman primates. Conversely, human participants have demonstrated a propensity to choose more optimally. However, human participants do not exclusively choose the alternative associated with more reinforcement. Framing a task in a real-world narrative has been effective in improving problem-solving on other tasks such as the Wason Four-Card problem. The present study gave human participants a choice task with either abstract stimuli or with a real-world narrative. In addition, participants were given terminal stimuli that were either predictive or unpredictive of reinforcement. Thus, participants were assigned to one of four conditions: Abstract Predictive, Abstract Unpredictive, Narrative Predictive, or Narrative Unpredictive. In contrast to the improved performance on the Wason Four-Card task, the current study found no evidence that the addition of a real-world narrative improved optimal choice performance. Rather, it may have interfered with optimal choice selection in that participants who received the narrative and unpredictive terminal stimuli were at chance performance at the end of the experimental session. Conversely, participants in the Abstract Unpredictive, Abstract Predictive, and Narrative Predictive conditions all demonstrated a preference for the optimal alternative. Possible mechanisms for these findings and future directions are discussed.
(© 2023. The Psychonomic Society, Inc.)
(© 2023. The Psychonomic Society, Inc.)