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The "Asian Disease problem" is a very standard experimental psychology/economics problem. It's alternatively phrased as this: "Would you like receive 4 dollars,
by saraid216 13y ago
The "Asian Disease problem" is a very standard experimental psychology/economics problem. It's alternatively phrased as this: "Would you like receive 4 dollars, or would you like a 40% chance to receive 10 dollars?"
The entire article is just a layer over this showing the supposed effects of asking the question in a foreign language (other comments have explained the likely problems of the experiment), and then another layer over that wrapping it in "this is totally relevant to you because Madiba".
I mean, yeah. Mandela was right. But not because of the foreign language effect.
- DerpDerpDerp 13y ago> It's alternatively phrased as this: "Would you like receive 4 dollars, or would you like a 40% chance to receive 10 dollars?" The problem is that the rational answer to this depends on a huge amount of background information, eg, the value of certainly having some money, versus the benefit of the additional money.
- saraid216 13y agoIt's less of a problem when the effect is well known to hold in a variety of phrasings. It doesn't matter if it's people or dollars; it doesn't matter if it's 4 out of 10 or 8 out of 10. Further, they account for stuff like that by using large sample sizes. Different people are choosing both options. It's just that the proportions hold despite this. They've spent a good 30 years confirming this. If you really want to criticize it, it'd be worth putting together a list of studies investigating this and analyzing their methodologies for problems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences)#Framing_effect_in_psychology_and_economics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(social_sciences)#Frami... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_effect_(psychology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_effect_(psychology)