Davranışsal bağışıklık sisteminin risk alımı üzerine etkisi: Çerçeveleme etkisi durumu

The framing effect is a heuristic bias, where people respond to a question differently depending on the way in which the question is presented. In this study, we investigated the Behavioral Immune System (BIS), the behavioral defense barrier against infectious diseases, as a potential reason for people's irrational decisions. We tested if pathogen threat influenced people's risky decision making in different frames as a function of perceived vulnerability to disease (PVD), which is a self-report measure of BIS. We collected data from 924 participants, who were randomly assigned to one of three priming conditions: disease threat, negatively valenced threat, or no-threat. After priming participants were asked to respond to a framing question randomly chosen between two alternative frames: loss or gain. The results showed a three-way interaction between framing, disease threat, and PVD levels. That is, when people were primed with disease, those with lower PVD had a higher likelihood to take risks in the gain frame and a lower likelihood in the loss frame. Crucially, this relationship was observed only in the disease prime condition, and not in the negatively valenced prime condition. This suggests that although disease is inherently negative our results were due to the perception of disease but not any negative mood or cognition. The specific effect of BIS on risk taking and implications is argued from an evolutionary perspective.