Supplemental Materials

Framing of Online Risk: Young Adults' and Adolescents' Representations of Risky Gambles

by C. M. White et al., 2016, Decision

Technical Appendix 1

Pilot Study Method

Participants

Forty-one adult participants (28 female; MAge= 36.44 years; SD = 13.11) were recruited online via a link posted on Facebook and the website Psychological Research on the Net. The latter website is sponsored by Hanover College, Indiana, and can be used free of charge to recruit participants via the internet to participate in ethically approved psychological studies. Participants were offered no compensation for their involvement and participation was entirely voluntary. Aside from age and sex, no other demographic information was collected.

Materials

Participants were presented with two variations of the framing task containing 36 scenarios in total.

Spinner gambling task. This task utilised the measures devised by Reyna et al. (2011; see also Reyna & Ellis, 1994) containing 18 scenarios describing a gambling problem. Half of the scenarios were presented in terms of potential gains, whereby participants won a hypothetical value of money and could choose to take the sure option and keep that value of money (option A), or take the gamble option (option B) and spin a spinner. The result of the spin could double the participant’s winnings or result in them winning nothing. The other nine scenarios were presented in terms of potential losses. In these cases participants were given a hypothetical monetary endowment from which value could be lost. Choosing the sure option (option A) would result in the participant losing half of their winnings. Choosing the gamble option (option B) would again involve a spinner, the outcome of which could result in the participant retaining the full value of their winnings, or losing it all. In both gain and loss framed scenarios the net value that could be won or lost was the same (see Table 1).

The risks of winning nothing in the gain frame, or losing everything in the loss frame, were one-half, two-thirds, or three-quarters. To display this visually each scenario was accompanied by a picture of a spinner with an arrow at its centre, and red and blue sections representing the relevant risk levels. In both gain and loss frames potential rewards could be small (£5), medium (£20), or large (£150). The combination of type of frame (2: gain, loss), level of risk (3: one-half, two-thirds, three-quarters), and level of reward (3: small, medium, large) resulted in 18 different scenarios.

Online risk taking task. Eighteen newly created scenarios were adapted from those used by Reyna et al. (2011) in order to assess online risk taking, portraying a situation where potential financial gains and losses could be encountered on the internet. This took the form of an online music quiz where a music voucher could be won for sure or a gamble taken by providing some brief personal information in order to be entered into a draw (see Table 1). While the context of the scenarios differed, the model was the same as the gambling scenarios. Half of the scenarios were presented as gains and half as losses; risk levels were one-half, two-thirds, and three-quarters; and potential rewards were £5, £20, and £150. Once again these values were hypothetical and participants did not actually win any vouchers.

Procedure

The study received ethical clearance from the University’s behavioural ethics committee. A link to the survey was posted on Facebook and on the website Psychological Research on the Net ( Respondents were invited to participate in the research study and instructed to click on the link for more information. An initial introduction briefly explained the main aims of the study and asked for consent by ticking a check box. Participants were instructed only to consent and continue if they were 18 years old or over. Participants were then guided through the questionnaire pages completing each individual measure. Participants first completed the Spinner gambling task followed by the Online risk-taking task, however scenarios within each task were presented randomly. At the end of the survey a more detailed description of the aims of the research were given to participants as well as details of online gambling and personal security advisory bodies.

Pilot Study Results

Relationships between the Spinner gambling task and Online risk-taking task.For each task the number of gambles were summed in the loss frame, gain frame, and overall. A framing score was calculated by subtracting the number of gambles in the gain frame from the number of gambles in the loss frame to create a score ranging from +9 to -9. Pearson’s Product Moment Correlations revealed a number of significant relationships between the spinner and online scenarios. This was evident for the total number of gambles in the loss frames, r(41)=.57 p<.01; total gambles overall, r(41)=.36 p=.02; and framing score, r(41)=.50 p=.001.

However, repeated measures t-tests revealed there was a significant difference between the mean number of gambles taken in the spinner and online scenarios. This was evident for the gain frames, t(40) = 2.82, p=.008, the loss frames, t(40) = 4.91, p<.001, the overall framing score, t(40) = 2.20, p=.034, and the total number of gambles taken, t(40) = 4.18, p<.001. In each instance participants were significantly more risk averse in the online scenarios. Gambling behaviour for the spinner scenarios and the online risk taking scenarios can be seen in Table 2.

Table 1

Gambling Scenarios Used in the Gain and Loss Frames of the Framing Task for the Spinner and Online Conditions.

Spinner Scenario / Online Scenario
Gain Frame
Imagine you are in a gambling situation and you have a choice. If you chose option A you will win £5 for sure. If you chose option B you will have a chance to spin this spinner (visual of spinner). If the spinner lands on red you win £10, if the spinner lands on blue you win nothing.” / “Imagine you take an online music quiz one day and get all the answers correct. A pop-up informs you that you have won a £5 online music voucher. However if you fill out a form with your full name, address, email, date of birth, and mobile phone number you will be entered into a draw to win a £10 music voucher. You now have a choice. If you chose option A you will win £5 for sure. If you chose option B you have a ½ chance of winning a £10 voucher but a ½ chance of winning nothing.”
Loss Frame / Imagine you are in a gambling situation where you start with £10. You now have a choice. If you take option A you will lose £5 for sure. If you chose option B you will have the chance to spin this spinner (visual of spinner). If the spinner lands on blue you lose £10. If the spinner lands on red you lose nothing.” / “Imagine you take an online music quiz one day and get all the answers correct. At the end of the quiz you have £10 worth of ‘virtual’ winnings, half of which can be exchanged for real cash. However if you fill out a form with your full name, address, date of birth, email, and mobile phone number you will be entered into a draw to win a bigger prize. You now have a choice. If you chose option A you will lose £5 of virtual money for sure. If you chose option B you have a ½ chance of losing all £10 but a ½ chance of losing nothing.”

Table 2. Mean scores (standard deviation in parentheses) of participants (N=41) for the Spinner gambling and Online risk taking Framing Tasks.

Framing Task Context
Spinner / Online
Gain frame gambles / 2.30 (2.47) / .98 (1.71)
Loss frame gambles / 3.81 (3.12) / 1.68 (2.81)
Total gambles / 6.10 (5.00) / 2.66 (4.20)
Framing score / 1.51 (2.59) / .71 (2.02)