The Impact of Perceived Threat of Infectious Disease on the Framing Effect

The framing effect is a heuristic bias, where the way a question is presented affects people’s response to it. This study (n = 924) investigated the influence of the behavioral immune system on the framing effect. We tested the changes in people’s responses towards two frames (i.e., losses and gains) when presented with a threat of disease and as a function of their perceived vulnerability to disease (PVD) level. After being randomly assigned to one of three priming conditions—disease threat, negative threat, and no-threat—participants were presented with one of the two-frame versions (gain or loss) of the damaged painting problem where they chose between a safe and a risky option. Finally, participants responded to the PVD scale and to demographic questions. Results revealed that when people were primed with disease threat, those with lower PVD had a higher likelihood to take risks in the gain frame and a lower likelihood in the loss frame. This effect was not observed when participants were primed with negative threat or no-threat, nor for those participants with high levels of PVD. This finding suggests a specific effect of disease threat on the framing effect.