This weeks sticky.
An offshoot on this thread here:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=1440475#post1440475
In short, the brain is wired to use emotion rather than reason for decision making.
Also,
Losses have a greater impact than gains.
This has provided a neural basis for the framing effect
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/313/5787/600b
An offshoot on this thread here:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=1440475#post1440475
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/313/5787/684Human choices are remarkably susceptible to the manner in which options are presented. This so-called "framing effect" represents a striking violation of standard economic accounts of human rationality, although its underlying neurobiology is not understood. We found that the framing effect was specifically associated with amygdala activity, suggesting a key role for an emotional system in mediating decision biases. Moreover, across individuals, orbital and medial prefrontal cortex activity predicted a reduced susceptibility to the framing effect. This finding highlights the importance of incorporating emotional processes within models of human choice and suggests how the brain may modulate the effect of these biasing influences to approximate rationality.
In short, the brain is wired to use emotion rather than reason for decision making.
Also,
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/315/5811/515People typically exhibit greater sensitivity to losses than to equivalent gains when making decisions. A broad set of areas (including midbrain dopaminergic regions and their targets) showed increasing activity as potential gains increased. Potential losses were represented by decreasing activity in several of these same gain-sensitive areas. Finally, individual differences in behavioral loss aversion were predicted by a measure of neural loss aversion in several regions
Losses have a greater impact than gains.
This has provided a neural basis for the framing effect
Now a team of cognitive neuroscientists reports findings on page 684 that link the framing effect to neural activity in a key emotion center in the human brain, the amygdala. They also identify another region, the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex (OMPFC), that may moderate the influence of emotion on decisions: The more activity subjects had in this area, the less susceptible they were to the framing effect. "The results could hardly be more elegant," says Daniel Kahneman, an economist at Princeton University who pioneered research on the framing effect 25 years ago (Science, 30 January 1981, p. 453).
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/313/5787/600b
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