The Frame Changes Everything

Would you choose a surgery with a "90% survival rate" or one with a "10% death rate"? Logically, they are identical. Psychologically, they are worlds apart. The first feels safe; the second feels dangerous. Same facts, different frame — and the frame drives your decision.

Framing is the cognitive bias where the presentation of information, not the information itself, shapes judgment.

Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky showed that framing effects are powerful and hard to correct. Even people who understand the bias keep falling for it. Your rational mind knows the two surgery options are the same — and it still picks the safe-sounding one.