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Abstract Framing effects are said to indicate irrationality in decision making because they illustrate that linguistically different descriptions of equivalent options lead to inconsistent choices. A review of the literature on the effects of adding, or subtracting, implicated complements of the sure option shows that this leads to a classic framing effect, a reversal of the classic effect, or no framing effect. Thus, the assumption of equivalence of formulations is not justified. In addition we provide a test of two major, but opposing theories on framing, prospect theory and fuzzy‐trace theory. Based on an online study we investigated the effects of subtracting complements of the risky option. The results are more consistent with fuzzy‐trace theory than with prospect theory. The consequences of these findings for the application of formal models like prospect theory, and for rationality, are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Kühberger et al. (Wed,) studied this question.