The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice.

I find Thought Question 2 a bit quaint. Everything we see is exploiting these framing effects to get us to spend more money. Go to TJ Maxx and see a discount tag highlighting a big discount without ever clearly identifying why the price was so high in the first place (http://prod-cdn.thekrazycouponlady.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/PriceTagCodes.png). The NYTimes recently covered how Amazon sellers use a similar tactic to highlight huge savings (90% off!) from highly inflated base prices (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/technology/its-discounted-but-is-it-a-deal-how-list-prices-lost-their-meaning.html). These companies are reframing the neutral point of the purchase changing the consumers focus from the perceived utility of the purchase to the perceived benefit of getting a discounted item.

With the advent of algorithmic prices, are the studies Tversky and Kahneman ran outdated? If prices will be personalized for us, how will we evaluate the benefit of the transaction? Will we be forced to consider the utility of our purchases since there will only be price? Or perhaps Amazon is already considering the "discount percent" is part of their pricing algorithm. Some people will respond strongly to the discount, but others will be annoyed so more transparent pricing will be provided. It's a brave new world.

Maybe HCI should look for inspiration in advertising and marketing. They've certainly learned how to encourage large numbers of people. But if we use these effectively are we just as bad as they are?

First of all, I was super hype for this reading because I've finally been reading "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Kahneman where he talks about his work with Amos Tversky very fondly.

Re: 1) Based on what the authors have discussed about framing, how can we design systems that enable rational, unbiased decision-making?

A lot of Kahneman and Tversky's work on heuristics and biases demonstrate the ways in which really tiny changes in a prompt can massively alter people's responses. A first step in designing systems that attempt to remove bias would be to review the most common heuristics and biases and what primes them. A second step would be to examine the purpose of your system and try to get a sense of who your target user base is. The norms and everyday reality of the user will likely influence the heuristics and biases the user is most susceptible to and how they are susceptible.

A final step, as julian mentions, would be to inform the user as much as possible about what the system is doing and possibly to educate the user about the potential biases at play. <- there might be some literature about whether or not this actually does anything, I can't remember right now

I don't think the above method is exhaustive, but it's probably something the people creating and designing systems should be thinking about.

Tristan Harris, Co-Founder of Apture and former Product Philosopher at Google has some really interesting thoughts on Design Ethics in Silicon Valley. I saw him give a talk once and it was recorded here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sdlzbQhrRw) where he talks about the psychological underpinnings that make us addicted to our phones and emails that are unethically designed into the technology we use related to the idea of an attention economy.

#5
Kahneman and Tversky's effort to revise a theory of rational choice with prospect theory makes me sad. The behavioral theory of rational choice had been thoroughly critiqued by researchers at the time of Kahneman and Tversky's writing. Here is one critique which I enjoy (also written by a Nobel prize winning economist) because it identifies a central weakness of Kahneman and Tversky's approach: as whether it portrays decision making faithfully in Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioral Foundations of Economic Theory, www.jstor.org/stable/2264946?seq=5#page_scan_tab_contents. I find Kahneman and Tversky's portrayal of an S-curve as a patch on a model that is fundamentally unable to portray decision-making as it is seen by the decision maker.

6. Now that you are aware that you may be influenced by the chosen frame in decision making, how might your behavior change?

In undergrad, I took a business class on marketing and economics. In it we read about how all the biggest name brand retailers were using social and cognitive psychology tenets to dupe us into buying things we don't need. Things they would manipulate included temperature, lighting, music tempo, mis-representing the sale numbers, etc. After this class, and still to this day, when I enter one of those retailers (usually Target - one of the most tricky of foes!), I consider all the ways they are using the environment to shape my decision-making. Even with this knowledge in mind, I make poor decisions while shopping, i.e. buying shoes I didn't need because it was the last day of sale, or buying things that say "natural" even though that is a completely meaningless construct, etc. There's a cognitive load on the shopper in trying to assess each item, it's price, and the environ for rhetoric and influence, and I am certainly unable to keep up while flooded in this way. I think this paper, which is a much needed refresher on the concept of framing, will give me a slight boost in helping me to consider how I'm being influenced, but ultimately I believe that after a time I'll be unable to dedicate enough of my cognitive resources to this end and will thus make forced errors in my shopping decisions.

Regarding Nick and Joselyn's posts-- yes, basically all the time I know I'm being duped, and it's all a matter of how much I care, I think (?). Shopping can be stressful for me (thinking back to those 24 jams), so when I go, I treat it as a game, and I will alternately actively combat and willfully succumb to the barrage of marketing ploys. And okay, yes, probably I unconsciously succumb to a ton of different ploys as well. But even here, I still kind of feel in control, because it's like, yeah, we all know it's all a trick. And to Alex's point, haven't we reached a point where that's kind of the norm? And hasn't this arguably always the norm in transactions? E.g. traders duping other traders, haggling over prices in street markets, etc. In many ways we are now more informed consumers (e.g. can compare prices and qualities online, etc.), but the sellers have accordingly upped their game.

And yes, I do think it's worth considering how to use marketing's somewhat nefarious strategies to achieve 'good' HCI ends, so long as we do so warily/transparently (well, at least transparent post-study). For example, there's been some HCI work in motivation and healthy or environmentally-friendly behaviors that might benefit from a more manipulative marketing-style approach.

The $10 play thought experiment and the $5 calculator/jacket thought experiments resonated with me. For both cases, even as I read the situations side by side and was fully cognizant that they were essentially reframes of the same amount of loss/gain, I still found myself making the same decisions that the majority of participants made. The calculator example is easier for me to explain, because the thrill I get from getting a good deal (50% off in the $10 calculator example) typically exceeds the actual monetary value of the deal. But I'm still mulling over the play example, so I think I'll stop now and pick the mulling back up tomorrow during class.

RE: Based on what the authors have discussed about framing, how can we design systems that enable rational, unbiased decision-making? (if possible?)

I don't think this is possible because it is not a systems problem - human nature is such that everyone has different value expectations, and different lenses that color our decision making processes. Most of our definitions of what is right/wrong has little bearing on any universally agreed upon principles, but it almost entirely dependent on the culture that we are raised in. I also don't think that that biases are always a bad thing - we tend to think of bias in really obvious situations like hiring people from a certain race/school/country etc.. however, even little things like purchasing items on amazon.com almost entirely based on bias. The very first thing that most of us think about when it comes to purchasing an item on amazon is how good/bad the reviews are and use that to guide our buying decision process. Most people like to think that since amazon is comprised of different types of people, then they are more like to make a "well informed" decision. My personal opinion is that "well informed" decision making process really consists of finding people that have the same value systems as we do (e.g. they will use the product the same way we want to, value for money etc), and subconsciously give a higher value to their perception of the product, and use that as a driver to make their purchase (creating a bias in this seemingly well informed decision process).

RE: Are computers susceptible to these same biases? Should they be?

Absolutely!! Computers are made by humans, and humans are inherently biased so....

This paper is very similar to the paper I and Joseph will be presenting, which also talks about biases people might have in their decision making process.
#1
As also mentioned in the decision making chapter, the framing of options could effect how people choose. For example, people may only consider one part of the choice and may not pay attention to what’s the probability of that choice happening. i think to design systems that enable rational decision making, it should be able to remind users of factors that could play a role in decision making. For example, in choosing graduate programs, what factors should be considered, what factors are usually considered by other people (learning from others’ behaviors). Users may have the right to attribute weights to different factors, but displaying factors, and alternative for users to consider could be useful.

#5
As is mentioned in the when will we do better paper, subjective better decisions and objective better decisions are different. I was wondering when we’re biased by risk seeking or risk aversion, and made not objectively best decisions, but will we feel subjectively better with the decisions during the process? For example, will people be stressed out if they take a big risk on something that could possibly result in a big reward or a big loss? i think as long as people are aware of the potential benefits and losses from their choices and made decisions based on that, that should be considered as rational decisions.