Carr, Hayley (2022) The Gist of our Choices: How Framing of Options Affects our Decisions. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
The question of sacrifice now for the sake of future gains is central to everyday behaviour and decision making; the purpose of this study was to highlight the importance of mental representation of choice, which in turn influence the likelihood of, for example delaying immediate gratification or risk taking. Research suggests that impulsivity is often viewed as a driver of decision making, that impulsive individuals are at an increased probability of making risky decisions motivated by instant reward, making individuals more likely to temporarily discount the value of delayed reward, opting for smaller instant rewards. This project builds on the Fuzzy Trace Theory (FTT) as its main theoretical framework, aiming to provide a more optimistic view of factors involved in decision making, with the goal of establishing how simple changes in semantic information (gist or verbatim representations) can modify one’s tendency to delay gratification and or make risky decisions.
The main survey within this project included a temporal discounting task (TDT) comprising 48 questions, dividing into four versions. The use of multiple versions for each of the survey questions was intentionally designed to manipulate participants choice options by including the hidden zero effect (explicit zero), a representation of a single choice option as an extended sequence used to manipulate participants patterns of behaviour, and in return reduce impulsivity in decision making. Two hypotheses were drawn from the results of the TDT to establish whether simple intervention within this study was able to promote more optimal patterns of decision making amongst participants.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
|---|---|
| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Current – Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Psychology and Wellbeing (1 Jan 2022 -) |
| Supervisors: | Shahin Rahimi-Golkhandan |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Psychology (Honours) |
| Date Deposited: | 15 May 2025 06:24 |
| Last Modified: | 15 May 2025 06:24 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Fuzzy-Trace Theory; Temporal Discounting; Hidden-Zero Effect; Explicit Zero; Impulsivity. |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52199 |
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