Two frames, one decision.
The lives of 600 people, a pack of ground beef, and a lost theater ticket: does your decision change when the same information is told differently?
Original study
- Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 211(4481), 453–458. Source
- Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47(2), 263–291. Source
- Kühberger, A. (1998). The influence of framing on risky decisions: A meta-analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 75(1), 23–55. Source
- Levin, I. P., Schneider, S. L., & Gaeth, G. J. (1998). All frames are not created equal: A typology and critical analysis of framing effects. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 76(2), 149–188. Source
- Klein, R. A., Ratliff, K. A., Vianello, M., Adams, R. B., Jr., Bahník, Š., Bernstein, M. J., … Nosek, B. A. (2014). Investigating variation in replicability: A "Many Labs" replication project. Social Psychology, 45(3), 142–152. Source
- Kühberger, A. (2023). A systematic review of risky-choice framing effects. EXCLI Journal, 22, 1012–1031. Source
- Levin, I. P., & Gaeth, G. J. (1988). How consumers are affected by the framing of attribute information before and after consuming the product. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(3), 374–378. Source
- Piñon, A., & Gambara, H. (2005). A meta-analytic review of framing effect: Risky, attribute and goal framing. Psicothema, 17(2), 325–331. Source
- Li, M., & Feldman, G. (2025). Revisiting mental accounting classic paradigms: Replication Registered Report of the problems reviewed in Thaler (1999). Royal Society Open Science, 12(9), 250979. Source
Our adaptation
A between-subjects adaptation of Tversky and Kahneman's (1981) Asian disease problem: each participant is randomly shown either the gain frame (people saved) or the loss frame (people who die) with equal probability; the sure option comes first and no country name is used. Round 2 tests attribute framing (Levin et al., 1998): the same ground beef is labeled '75% lean' or '25% fat' (at random) and rated from 1 to 7. Round 3 tests mental accounting (Tversky and Kahneman, 1981): having lost either the ticket or the same amount in cash (at random) at the theater door, would the participant buy a ticket? A final question presents the same outbreak in the other frame.
Differences from the original study
- The scenarios are hypothetical; there is no reward.
- No country name or the word 'Asian' is used (Many Labs also removed it).
- The theater scenario uses Turkish lira amounts.
Measured variables
The columns of the open data file. List fields are expanded into numbered columns (for example rt_60, est_3); JSON columns contain only numbers and fixed stimulus names.
| Column | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
frame | gain | loss | Round 1: frame shown (gain | loss; randomly assigned). |
pick | sure | risky | Round 1: program chosen (sure | risky; main measure). |
pick2 | sure | risky | Final question: program chosen when the same outbreak is described in the other frame (for within-person consistency; should not be used in the between-subjects analysis). |
attr_frame | integer | Round 2 label frame (0 = '75% lean', 1 = '25% fat'; random). |
attr | number | Round 2: rating of the ground beef from 1 to 7. |
theater | cash | ticket | Round 3 scenario (cash = lost cash, ticket = lost ticket; random). |
buy | 0 | 1 | Round 3: would still buy a ticket (1 = yes, 0 = no). |
Columns present in every file (14)
row_id | string | Row code. Regenerated at random in every release; it does not identify a person and cannot be matched across releases or experiments. |
experiment | string | Short name of the experiment (URL slug). |
experiment_version | integer | Version of the answer format. For experiments whose format changed, only the current format is published. |
date | YYYY-MM-DD | YYYY-Www | YYYY-MM | Day the answer was given (Istanbul time). If fewer than 5 answers share the same day, language and device, it is coarsened to the ISO week, and to the month if that is still too few. |
date_precision | day | week | month | Precision of the date column. |
lang | tr | en | (boş) | Interface language. Language recording started in the first week of October 2026; for earlier answers it is known only in experiments whose stimuli depend on the language, and empty otherwise. |
device | desktop | mobile | tablet | (boş) | Device class reported by the browser (class only; browser details are neither stored here nor published). |
source | site | embed | Where the answer came from: the balabs site or the experiment embedded on another site. The embedding site is not published. |
mode | free | daily | challenge | race | session | (boş) | Play mode in scored experiments: free play, daily round, challenge, race room, experiment session. Empty for unscored experiments and for older answers that did not store it. |
color_vision | normal | rg | by | contrast | (boş) | In color-based experiments, the color vision mode the participant chose: normal, red-green, blue-yellow or high contrast. Stimuli are generated along different axes per mode, so compare within a mode. Empty for other experiments. |
first_play | 1 | Every row is a participant’s first play of this experiment (always 1). Replays are stored only as leaderboard scores and are not part of the open data. |
seen_before | yes | no | unsure | (boş) | Participant’s own report of whether they had seen this experiment or its known answer before (in experiments that ask). |
duration_s | number | Time from the start of the experiment to submitting the answer, in seconds (measured in the browser, 0.1 s). |
play_score | number | Leaderboard score of the first play (scored experiments; defined on the method card). Empty for unscored experiments. |
Exclusion criteria
The server requires the round-1 frame and choice; invalid answers are rejected. Values from the extra rounds are collected in the browser. Only frame and pick should be used for the between-subjects comparison.
- Only each participant's first answer to this experiment; replays are not included.
- Simulated rows, bots, banned and sample accounts are not included.
- Answers before 3 October 2026 are not included (the first day the open data notice was live).
Scoring
This experiment has no leaderboard score. The crowd result is the share choosing the sure option in each frame.
Version notes
- October 2026
The interface language (lang) started being stored with each answer; for earlier answers it is known only in experiments whose stimuli depend on the language, and empty otherwise.