Framing Effects in Public Goods Experiments
该实验发现，在公共品博弈中，呈现方式的细微变化（如分阶段重启、收益函数表述方式、理解任务引导的视角）会显著且可复制地影响贡献水平，提醒实验经济学家注意框架效应。
Abstract Three effects of apparently superficial changes in presentation (“framing effects” in abroad sense), were replicated together in the same repeated linear public goods experiment with real financial incentives. First, 32 repetitions were presented as four phases of 8 repetitions with a break and results summary in between. Contribution levels decayed during each phase but then persistently returned to about 50% after each re-start. Second, subjects contributed more when the payoff function was decomposed in terms of a gift which is multiplied and distributed to the other players, rather than the equivalent public good from which everyone benefits. Third, subjects contributed more following a comprehension task which asks them to calculate the benefits to the group of various actions (the “We” frame), rather than the benefits to themselves (the “I” frame). These results suggest that aspects of presentation may have strong and replicable effects on experimental findings, even when care is taken to make the language and presentation of instructions as neutral as possible. Experimental economists should therefore give careful consideration to potential framing effects—or, better still, explicitly test for them—before making claims about the external validity of results.