Abstract
A comparative fact can be presented in two ways. ‘Among
white evangelical Christians, Obama had 40% fewer votes
than McCain.’ or ‘Among white evangelical Christians,
McCain had 40% more votes than Obama.’ Focusing on why
Obama had fewer votes than McCain may result in a different
explanation from focusing on why McCain had more votes
than Obama, although it is the same fact. Thus what
determines whether we focus in our explanation on Obama or
McCain?
In two studies, we show that people generally focused more
on the first part of the comparative fact. However, when the
comparative fact is presented in a negative frame (‘less …
than’) there was a shift in focus from the first to the second
part of the fact. For neutral items this moderating effect did
not occur. The Principle of Lexical Marking (Clark, 1969)
and Loss Aversion (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) are
discussed as possible accounts for this shift in focus.
white evangelical Christians, Obama had 40% fewer votes
than McCain.’ or ‘Among white evangelical Christians,
McCain had 40% more votes than Obama.’ Focusing on why
Obama had fewer votes than McCain may result in a different
explanation from focusing on why McCain had more votes
than Obama, although it is the same fact. Thus what
determines whether we focus in our explanation on Obama or
McCain?
In two studies, we show that people generally focused more
on the first part of the comparative fact. However, when the
comparative fact is presented in a negative frame (‘less …
than’) there was a shift in focus from the first to the second
part of the fact. For neutral items this moderating effect did
not occur. The Principle of Lexical Marking (Clark, 1969)
and Loss Aversion (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979) are
discussed as possible accounts for this shift in focus.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society |
| Pages | 1716 |
| Number of pages | 1721 |
| Publication status | Published (VoR) - 2009 |