Page 103 - The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

96 The Handbook of Persuasion and Social Marketing

$50 and $100. For the loss perspective, the subjective distance between
$0 and $50 is smaller than the loss between $50 and $100. These obvious
interrelations stemming from prospect theory led to the postulation of the
principles of so-called mental accounting, which is effectively used in
managing political events and in controlling their persuasive impact.
In their pioneering research, Tversky and Kahneman (1986) showed
the “absolute” influence of positive and negative framing on decision-mak-
ing through encouraging or discouraging the will to undertake risks. The
problems they dealt with were discussed in terms of certainty or the prob-
ability of the occurrence of given events. In most cases, these events re-
lated to extreme and experientially infrequent phenomena, such as the
need to cope in an unexpected cataclysmic situation or the choice of a
more or less risky medical treatment. Nevertheless, the interrelations that
these researchers postulated have aptly been extrapolated onto the realm
of actual economic problems, which is crucial in creating state social poli-
cies (Quattrone & Tversky, 1988). These problems have led to the postula-
tion of certain socially important legal regulations and thus can influence
electoral behavior. Apart from the problem of choosing how to present
these issues to the public—with the use of a positive or a negative frame—
these problems also enable the use of the so-called psychophysical ratio-
difference principle. This principle helps determine the divergence in
perception of the same difference as dependent on the scale of values used
for its assessment, such as the figures relating to the economic situation,
the growth in the number of new businesses, or the decrease in the unem-
ployment rate. When activated in the same message addressed toward a
group of decision-makers, these two mechanisms—framing and the ratio-
difference principle—can lead to a stronger persuasive effect.
ratio-difference principle and framing. Let us scrutinize the problem
discussed by Quattrone and Tversky (1988) regarding political decision-
making. Such decisions are frequently compromises between gains and
losses resulting from a choice. To put it metaphorically, the choice is often
of whether “to have the cake or eat it.” This problem can be illustrated by
means of the relationship between employment and inflation. These eco-
nomic phenomena are interconnected and stay in a well-defined causal
relationship. In a nutshell, a rise in the employment rate can influence a
rise in the inflation rate; similarly, reducing the inflation rate can send em-
ployment figures into a downslide. This interconnection is particularly
evident in the early and late stages of global economic crises. Such circum-
stances reveal the fact that a desirable change regarding one societal prob-
lem, such as a reduction in unemployment rates, is accompanied by an
undesirable change in another societal problem—in this case, increased