Cm. Brendl et al., SENSITIVITY TO VARYING GAINS AND LOSSES - THE ROLE OF SELF-DISCREPANCIES AND EVENT FRAMING, Journal of personality and social psychology, 69(6), 1995, pp. 1028-1051
Three studies psychophysically measured people's discrimination among
different sizes of monetary net gains or net losses. Participants imag
ined either gains or nonlosses (i.e., net gains) or losses or nongains
(i.e., net losses). Participants discriminated more when the identica
l event was framed as the presence (gains and losses) versus the absen
ce (nonlosses and nongains) of an outcome, presumably because the latt
er is harder to represent. Discrimination was enhanced when the motiva
tional features of the imagined event were either both the same as or
both different from a person's self-discrepancy. Discrimination was re
duced when only one of the motivational features was different. A mode
l of excitations, inhibitions, and disinhibitions between mental repre
sentation is suggested to account for these findings.