Nationality of Victims Will Not Influence Participants’ Risk Preference

Abstract

The human brain does not always function rationally. The classical framing effect suggests people have different risk preferences regarding how the situation is framed. Some research suggests nationality will influence decision-making. This study explores whether people will change their risk preferences when questions are framed differently and set in different national contexts. An online between-subject-design experiment among 224 Chinese grownups was conducted, using a modified version of “Asian Disease Problem”. The independent variables of this study were the nationalities in each question and negative or positive framings of the question, while the dependent variable was the participants’ risk preference. The results showed that framing has a significant main effect. Nationality was not found a significant main effect, but the main effect of framing remains significant in each nationality setting. This study revealed that people had different risk preferences depending on the framings of the question. Participants were inclined to choose the riskseeking option. At the same time, the question was framed negatively but not showed a salient preference for riskseeking or risk-aversive options in positive framing. However, participants were not influenced by which nationality the question was set in. Further research containing the priming of nationality before the framing question is needed to examine the exact relationship between nationality and the framing. fMRI studies of which parts of the brain are active during participants' decision-making might also help to provide deeper understandings of the neuropsychological rationales of their choices.