On the elicitation of preferences for alternative therapies
Barbara McNeil, Stephen Pauker, Harold Sox and Amos Tversky ask patients, graduate students and physicians to imagine they have lung cancer and to choose between surgery and radiation therapy, given cumulative probabilities and life-expectancy data. Different groups received information that differed only in whether the treatments were named, whether results were given as life expectancy or cumulative probability, and whether outcomes were framed as living or dying. In all three groups surgery looked relatively more attractive under each of the three favourable presentations, and the authors suggest that awareness of such effects could help reduce bias and improve medical decision making.
Barbara McNeil, Stephen Pauker, Harold Sox and Amos Tversky ask patients, graduate students and physicians to imagine they have lung cancer and to choose between surgery and radiation therapy, given cumulative probabilities and life-expectancy data. Different groups received information that differed only in whether the treatments were named, whether results were given as life expectancy or cumulative probability, and whether outcomes were framed as living or dying. In all three groups surgery looked relatively more attractive under each of the three favourable presentations, and the authors suggest that awareness of such effects could help reduce bias and improve medical decision making.
Written from the abstract as published with the paper, read 2026-10-28.
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McNeil, B. J., Pauker, S. G., Sox, H. C., & Tversky, A. (1982). On the elicitation of preferences for alternative therapies. New England Journal of Medicine, 306(21), 1259-1262. doi:10.1056/NEJM198205273062103 https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM198205273062103