Numbers do not add up! The pragmatic approach to the framing of medical treatments
Laura Macchi and Edoardo Zulato re-examine the medical framing problem introduced by McNeil and colleagues, in which people often favoured surgery more in a survival frame than in a mortality frame. They argue that the pattern stems from the cumulative frequency format in which the data were presented, which people may misread as linear, and, drawing on Gricean pragmatics, that this format violates conversational expectations. In three studies the framing effect appeared with the cumulative format and not with a linear or interval format, and many participants judged the cumulative data to be wrong. The authors conclude that the reversal is a product of misleading communication rather than a true cognitive bias.
Laura Macchi and Edoardo Zulato re-examine the medical framing problem introduced by McNeil and colleagues, in which people often favoured surgery more in a survival frame than in a mortality frame. They argue that the pattern stems from the cumulative frequency format in which the data were presented, which people may misread as linear, and, drawing on Gricean pragmatics, that this format violates conversational expectations. In three studies the framing effect appeared with the cumulative format and not with a linear or interval format, and many participants judged the cumulative data to be wrong. The authors conclude that the reversal is a product of misleading communication rather than a true cognitive bias.
Written from the abstract as published with the paper, read 2026-10-28.
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Macchi, L., & Zulato, E. (2021). Numbers do not add up! The pragmatic approach to the framing of medical treatments. Judgment and Decision Making, 16(3), 596-613. doi:10.1017/S1930297500007750 https://doi.org/10.1017/S1930297500007750