Irwin Levin

Who they are

Irwin P. Levin is first author on two papers on framing effects. Gary Gaeth is co-author on both, and the second adds Sandra Schneider. The first, from 1988, tested ground beef labels with consumers. The second, from 1998, set out the typology of risky-choice, attribute and goal framing.

Key papers

Levin and Gaeth (1988), Journal of Consumer Research 15(3), 374-378. Consumers rated qualities of ground beef labelled either 75 per cent lean or 25 per cent fat. The lean label drew the more favourable ratings, and the effect was smaller after the consumers had tasted the beef. The authors explain this with an averaging model in which a diagnostic experience of the product dilutes the influence of the wording.

Levin, Schneider and Gaeth (1998), Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 76(2), 149-188. The paper starts from the observation that studies on framing information in positive or negative terms had produced mixed results. Its argument is that those studies defined framing in different ways and so measured different underlying processes. It proposes a typology of three: the standard risky-choice effect introduced by Tversky and Kahneman in 1981, attribute framing and goal framing. It describes each, gives examples and discusses likely mechanisms, and it argues that the typology resolves inconsistencies in the literature.

Key ideas

The 1998 paper's central claim is that framing is not one effect: risky-choice framing changes willingness to gamble, attribute framing changes how one characteristic of an object is judged, and goal framing changes how persuasive a message is. Piñon and Gambara's 2005 review reports the three types separately.

The 1988 study reported that the label moved ratings and that tasting the product reduced the movement.

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