“The Framing of Decision Situations. Automatic Goal Selection and Rational Goal Pursuit.”
Dissertation, 2003: University of Groningen.
Supervisors: Siegwart Lindenberg and Tom Snijders.

Published online in the University of Groningen's dissertation library.
For obtaining a hardcopy, please visit the publisher's page.

Orthodox versions of Rational Action Theory postulate the maximisation of a situation-invariant utility measure as the mechanism that underlies human behaviour. This postulate - as powerful as it is for predicting behaviour in a multitude of applications - limits the scope of Rational Action Theory. In this book, it is argued that several phenomena of natural interest to sociologists, like normative behaviour or problems of self-command, cannot be addressed adequately in the orthodox framework because they rely on cognitive automatisms that operate in a non-maximising manner. As an alternative, a cognitive variant of Rational Action Theory is elaborated: Framing Theory. Here, maximising behaviour - in the form of rational goal pursuit - occurs only locally, after the content of the goal is identified. This goal identification, also called the framing of the decision situation, is driven by mechanisms like mental inertia and situational triggering that are incompatible with globally maximising behaviour.

Next to the theoretical foundation of Framing Theory in the psychological and cognitive sciences, a family of stochastic models is proposed that can directly express the core notions of the theory. By fitting these models to choice data, frames can be assessed quantitatively, and predictions of Framing Theory can be tested in a convenient way. The theory is exemplarily applied to the social dilemma domain. In an experimental public goods game, the effect of a sanctioning system on individual cooperation, and the mediating role of framing, are studied. Finally, in a series of three small experimental studies, the possibilities and limitations of Framing Theory as a descriptive model of human decision making are assessed.