Framing Risk With Numbers: The Framing Effects of Risk Assertions and Number Formats on Emotions and Risk Perceptions

• In Event: Risk and Media

Abstract

This study examines how risk assertions and number formats for presenting crime risk information interact to influence cognitive and emotional outcomes. Experimental news stories presented assertion frames highlighting either safety from or vulnerability to violent crime and crime risk information expressing crime prevalence statistics in three different formats (i.e., absolute frequency, relative frequency and percentages) following a 2x3 factorial design. Findings indicate that the probability formats including relative frequency and percentage primarily drive the emotional effects of assertion frames. Furthermore, the negative emotions elicited by the interplay between the probability formats and the unsafe assertion can produce pessimistic risk assessments. These results not only contribute to our understanding of number format and assertion frame effects in the contexts of crime risk, but also to the larger body of framing theory regarding interactions between frames operating at different textual levels.

Authors

• ByungGu Lee, U of Wisconsin-Madison

• Jiawei Liu, U of Wisconsin-Madison

• Hyesun Choung

• Douglas M. McLeod, U of Wisconsin-Madison