Decision making in civil disputes: the effect of role and frame.
| dc.contributor.advisor | Dunn, John Cameron | en |
| dc.contributor.author | Gilliland, Victoria | en |
| dc.contributor.school | School of Psychology | en |
| dc.date.issued | 2010 | en |
| dc.description.abstract | This thesis presents seven experiments that investigate the application of Kahneman and Tversky's prospect theory (1979) to litigation, paying particular attention to the role of framing. Litigation is treated as a form of crisis bargaining which varies significantly from negotiation undertaken in more normative circumstances (for example, managerial conflict and two-party price negotiations). The first two experiments made use of the scenario evaluation paradigm, used in previous studies by Rachlinski (1996), van Koppen (1990) and Korobkin and Guthrie (1994, 1998), in which they argued that framing is dependent on litigant role with plaintiffs adopting a positive or gain frame and defendants adopting a negative or loss frame. The aim of these experiments was to manipulate the reference points of both plaintiffs and defendants in order to determine whether it is possible to alter the frame adopted by each. The results revealed that it is possible for defendants and plaintiffs to be induced to adopt a positive frame and negative frame respectively. Furthermore, regardless of role, positively framed litigants were significantly more likely to settle than their negatively framed counterparts (an average increase of approximately 20 percent). This is a new finding in litigation research. Studies 3 and 4 sought to determine whether the dissociation of role and frame is still evident in a more realistic experiment using simulated negotiations. This methodology has previously been used by Margaret Neale, Max Bazerman and others in the field of organisational conflict, and by Linda Babcock and colleagues (1997) in considering bias in litigation. However, the studies presented here are the first to use simulated negotiations to investigate the effects of framing during litigation. In contrast to the scenario-based studies, Study 3 found no effect of either role or frame. Study 4 was conducted in order to determine if this was due to the requirement, to maintain comparability with the scenario-based experiments, that the parties ignore court costs and legal fees. However, despite including a schedule of fees, Study 4 also found no evidence of framing effects. The aims of studies 5, 6 and 7 were to determine whether the failure to observe framing effects in studies 3 and 4 could be attributed to the implementation of costs and other changes or whether the direct manipulation of reference points simply does not transfer to more dynamic negotiation environments. While the results of these experiments did not reach a clear outcome on this question, it was possible to conclude that prospect theory's prediction of framing effects is not a major determinant of litigant behaviour. | en |
| dc.description.dissertation | Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Psychology, 2010 | en |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/2440/65226 | |
| dc.provenance | Copyright material removed from digital thesis. See print copy in University of Adelaide Library for full text. | en |
| dc.subject | prospect theory; framing; legal decision making; role; plaintiff; defendant | en |
| dc.title | Decision making in civil disputes: the effect of role and frame. | en |
| dc.type | Thesis | en |