The Frame-Dependence of Prosocial Risky Decisions

In society, consumers are often impacted by decisions made for them by other decision-makers such as physicians, lawyers, and policy makers. In cases where these decisions have a risky element, the decision-makers could be affected by their own prosocial motivation and the gain versus loss framing of the possible decision outcomes. We theorize that prosocial motivation and framing influence these decisions via the decision-maker’s anticipated moral self-regard for each possible outcome. We investigate the implications of this theoretical approach when the decision is between a riskless and a risky option with equal expected outcome. In this context, previous research suggests a moral threshold perspective where the prosocial decision-maker avoids the worst outcome under the risky option as it falls below a moral threshold; the implication is that the riskless option is favorable regardless of framing. At the same time, another line of research suggests an agency factor perspective, where the sure outcome of the riskless option imputes direct causal agency of causing benefit (harm) in the gain (loss) frame; the implication is that the riskless option is favorable under the gain frame but unfavorable under the loss frame. We propose that the interaction of these two perspectives is such that increased prosocial motivation leads to increased risk aversion – the tendency to choose the riskless option – in the gain frame but a mitigated change in the loss frame. We demonstrated this effect across four experimental studies involving over 3,200 participants and provided process evidence for the underlying theoretical mechanism.