CHOICES AND OPPORTUNITIES - ANOTHER EFFECT OF FRAMING ON DECISIONS

Many decisions can be framed either as 'choices' between alternative c ourses of action (e.g. Should I move to New York or stay in Chicago?) or as 'opportunities' to pursue a particular course of action (i.e. Sh ould I move to New York?). Although there is no logical difference bet ween these two different decision frames, there may be important psych ological differences between them. In four studies, we explore the dif ferences between 'choices' and 'opportunities'. The results of Studies 1 and 2 show that college students view many of the decisions they ty pically face as opportunities, rather than choices. Further, the resul ts of Study 2 suggest that the frame students adopt is systematically related to the preferences they express, The latter finding led to Stu dies 3 and 4, where we show that preferences can be influenced by enco uraging people to adopt one decision frame rather than another. (C) 19 98 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.