Zhenghui Li
Research Mentor: Julie Boland
Mentor Department: Psychology, LSA
Author(s): Lu Sun, Julie Boland
Session: Session 4 (1:00 PM – 1:50 PM)
Presentation Type: Poster 33
Abstract
Although some studies on the framing effect suggest that humans make different decisions based on varying descriptions of the same issue, only few have investigated whether emotional modifiers within sentences influence the framing effect. It means we still have a critical gap in our understanding of linguistic mechanisms in decision making, especially about how people’s emotional language effect their judgments and preferences. To conduct this experiment, we recruited native English speakers to complete a survey we designed on the Qualtrics platform. We collected the data from participants’ responses and analyzed them using R to examine the interaction between the emotional modifiers and the framing effects. In this study, after collecting all the data, we find a key discovery. The analyzed data revealed that only the negative emotional modifiers modulated the framing effect, while the positive emotional modifiers did not significantly influence the framing effect. Analysis of this data yields new insights into how emotional modifiers enhance or weaken framing strength. This research holds significant implications because if the study confirms that emotional modifiers influence decision-making, it means that emotional language is also a crucial mechanism of the framing effect. Our research has potential applications in several fields, including psychology, linguistics, and behavioral sciences.
