Prospect Theory

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					     CHAPTER 2

     Prospect Theory

Prospect theory is a theory of decision making under conditions of risk.
Decisions are based on judgments. Judgments are assessments about the
external state of the world. They are made especially challenging under
conditions of uncertainty, where it is dif‹cult to foresee the consequences
or outcomes of events with clarity. Decisions involve internal con›ict over
value trade-offs. They are made dif‹cult when choices promote contradic-
tory values and goals. Prospect theory directly addresses how these choices
are framed and evaluated in the decision-making process.
      This chapter provides the theoretical basis for the empirical casework
that follows. First of all, there is a brief reference to rational choices theo-
ries in terms of the historical foundations from which prospect theory
emerged. These theories are mentioned here because rational choice theo-
ries constitute a better known approach in political science and often rep-
resent the dominant alternative model for explaining the behavior under
investigation here. The rational choice discussion is brief and simple
because rational choice models are not the main concern of this work. The
objective is not to test the predictions of prospect theory against those of
rational choice models. Rather, this outline is provided as a basis of com-
parison to examine the explanatory and predictive value afforded by
prospect theory. Second, prospect theory itself is then discussed in detail in
order to place the theory in its appropriate psychological and political con-
text. Last, the applicability of prospect theory to international politics is
discussed, and some de‹nitions, issues of operationalization, and a brief
outline of the case studies that follow are offered.

Historical Context

Expected value was one of the ‹rst theories of decision making under risk.
The expected value of an outcome is equal to its payoff times its probabil-
ity. This model failed in predicting outcomes in many instances because it
was obvious that the value that a particular payoff held for someone was
not always directly related to its precise monetary worth.
      Daniel Bernoulli was the ‹rst to see this contradiction and propose a

16      Risk-Taking in International Politics

modi‹cation to the expected value notion in 1738.1 In fact, Bernoulli was
the ‹rst to introduce the concept of systematic bias in decision making
based on a “psychophysical” model.2 Speci‹cally, Bernoulli used a coin
toss game known as the St. Petersburg paradox to demonstrate the limita-
tions of expected value as a normative decision rule. While the speci‹cs of
the game are complex and irrelevant to this study, Bernoulli’s analysis of
the dynamics of the St. Petersburg paradox led him to appreciate that the
subjective value, or utility, that a payoff has for an individual is not always
directly related to the absolute amount of that payoff, or expected value.
Rather, the value a person attaches to an outcome can be in›uenced by
such factors as the likelihood of winning, or probability, among other
things. In this way, Bernoulli showed that people would not always bet
solely on the basis of the expected value of a game.
      Out of his analysis, Bernoulli proposed a “utility function” to explain
people’s choice behavior. Bernoulli assumed that people tried to maximize
their utility, and not their expected value. Bernoulli’s function proposed
that utility was not merely a linear function of wealth, but rather a subjec-
tive, concave, evaluation of outcome. The concave shape of the function
introduced the notion of decreasing marginal utility, whereby changes far-
ther away from the starting point have less impact than those which are
closer to it. For example, Bernoulli’s utility function argues that $1 is a lot
compared with nothing; people will therefore be reluctant to part with this
dollar. However, $101 is not signi‹cantly different to most people than
$100. Thus, people are more willing to part with their hundred-and-‹rst
dollar than with their only one.
      Because Bernoulli’s concave utility function assumed that increments
in utility decreased with increasing wealth, the expected utility model
implicitly assumed risk aversion. Speci‹cally, Bernoulli argued that a per-
son would prefer a sure outcome over a gamble with an equal expected
value. In other words, people would prefer $100 for sure over a gamble
that paid $200 or nothing on the toss of a fair coin.
      Bernoulli’s model was the beginning of utility theory. As such, it com-
bined a mixture of descriptive and normative elements. The description
seemed sensible, and the normative implications merely represented the
idea that caution constituted the better part of prudence. To the extent
that Bernoulli assumed that people are typically risk averse, he explained
this behavior in terms of people’s attitudes toward the value of the payoff,
rather than in terms of the phenomenon of risk-taking behavior itself. Peo-
ple’s attitudes toward risk were posited as a by-product of their attitude
toward value.
      Two centuries later, von Neumann and Morgenstern revolutionized
Bernoulli’s expected utility theory by advancing the notion of “revealed
                                                      Prospect Theory      17

preferences.”3 In developing an axiomatic theory of utility, von Neumann
and Morgenstern turned Bernoulli’s suppositions upside down and used
preferences to derive utility. In Bernoulli’s model, utility was used to de‹ne
preference, because people were assumed to prefer the option that pre-
sented the highest utility. In the von Neumann and Morgenstern model,
utility describes preferences; knowing the utility of an option informs an
observer of a player’s preferences. Von Neumann and Morgenstern’s
axioms do not determine an individual’s preference ordering, but they do
impose certain constraints on the possible relationships between the indi-
vidual’s preferences. In von Neumann and Morgenstern’s theory, as long
as the relationship between an individual’s preferences satis‹es certain
axioms such as consistency and coherence, it became possible to construct
an individual utility function for that person; such a function could then be
used to demonstrate a person’s pursuit of his maximum subjective utility.
This shift in utility theory toward revealed preferences allowed room now
for different people to have different preference orderings.4
      In von Neumann and Morgenstern’s model of subjective expected
utility, there is no clear distinction between normative and descriptive
aspects. As mentioned, Bernoulli combined these elements, because risk
aversion was assumed to offer prudent counsel. In von Neumann and
Morgenstern’s model, it was assumed that axiomatic subjective expected
utility is not only the way rational people should behave, but do behave.
People seek to maximize their subjective expected utility; one person may
not share the same utility curve as another, but each follows the same nor-
mative axioms in striving toward their individually de‹ned maximum sub-
jective expected utility.
      The crucial axioms in subjective expected utility models are transitiv-
ity, dominance, and invariance. Transitivity assumes that if option A is
preferred to option B, and B is preferred to C, then A is preferred to C as
well.5 Dominance argues that if one option is better on at least one aspect,
and at least as good on all other aspects, it will be preferred to lesser
options. Invariance posits that a preference should remain unchanged
regardless of order or method of presentation. All three of these axioms
are basic to almost any rational model of decision making. All of these
assumptions seem logically correct, and yet people demonstrate systematic
violations of all of them in actual choice behavior. This is one of Tversky
and Kahneman’s crucial ‹ndings.6

Prospect Theory

Tversky and Kahneman have demonstrated in numerous highly con-
trolled experiments that most people systematically violate all of the basic
18      Risk-Taking in International Politics

axioms of subjective expected utility theory in their actual decision-mak-
ing behavior at least some of the time.7 These ‹ndings run contrary to the
normative implications inherent within classical subjective expected utility
theories. In response to their ‹ndings, Tversky and Kahneman provided
an alternative, empirically supported, theory of choice, one that accurately
describes how people actually go about making their decisions. This model
is called prospect theory.8 In short, prospect theory predicts that individu-
als tend to be risk averse in a domain of gains, or when things are going
well, and relatively risk seeking in a domain of losses, as when a leader is
in the midst of a crisis.
      Prospect theory is based on psychophysical models, such as those that
originally inspired Bernoulli’s expected value proposition. Traditionally,
psychophysics investigates the precise relationship, usually mathemati-
cally expressed, between the physical and the psychological worlds. The
goal is to determine the point at which a change in the physical stimulus is
psychologically perceived as a sensory change by the subject. Most
research in the sensory domain, for example, has determined that physical
stimulus must increase geometrically for psychological experience to
increase arithmetically; this produces a concave curve, much like
Bernoulli’s risk-averse utility curve.9
      Tversky and Kahneman applied psychophysical principles to investi-
gate judgment and decision making. Just as people are not aware of the
processing the brain engages in to translate vision into sight, they are not
aware of the kinds of computations the brain makes in editing and evalu-
ating choice. People make decisions according to how their brains process
and understand information and not solely on the basis of the inherent
utility that a certain option possesses for a decision maker.
      Much of Tversky and Kahneman’s work is designed to show that
descriptive and normative theories cannot be combined into a single, ade-
quate model of choice, as von Neumann and Morgenstern attempted to do
with their axiomatic subjective expected utility model; rather, the behav-
ioral violations of expected utility in which people systematically engage
are too basic to allow for integration within the axioms demanded by nor-
mative models. In short, theories that are empirically accurate in descrip-
tion fail to meet even the most basic normative prescriptions. Thus, Tver-
sky and Kahneman ultimately argue that normative theories need to be
abandoned altogether in analyzing judgment and decision making because
they fail to offer an adequate understanding of actual decision behavior.10
      Prospect theory shares certain characteristics with previous notions
of expected utility. Like Bernoulli, the value function of prospect theory
assumes that the shape of the curve is similar for everybody. Like von
Neumann and Morgenstern, prospect theory recognizes that the curve is
                                                      Prospect Theory       19

not a straight line and that the utility of that curve can differ between indi-
viduals. Despite these similarities, however, prospect theory is not merely
a descendant of earlier utility models.
      In classical decision models, utility is understood to exist independent
of probability. In games of chance, subjective utility is typically de‹ned as
the point of indifference between a sure thing and a hard lottery. For
example, a given player’s subjective utility might lie at the point where he
has no discernible preference between receiving $50 for sure and a gamble
with a 50 percent chance of winning $200 and a 50 percent chance of win-
ning nothing. As a result, subjective utility might differ across individuals
for the same payoff matrixes. Subjective utility is used to “‹nd out” the
worth of any given objective outcome to a particular individual. In short,
utility is the value an individual places on a given outcome. In this way,
calculations of subjective expected utility serve to de‹ne “revealed prefer-
      What does this mean in practical terms? How do these decision strate-
gies play out in real life questions? An example might be illustrative. Imag-
ine a classical decision analyst who wants to ‹nd out how much an indus-
try would have to “pay” (in taxes, improved safety standards, and so on)
in order to increase pollution in an area by a factor estimated to be one
additional death per year from cancer, on average. The ‹rst thing such an
analyst might do is seek to determine how much life is worth to people in
that area. In this example, a classical decision analyst undertaking such a
task might ask someone to place an objective value on the relevant out-
come, their life. So, the analyst might ask the subject, “what is your life
worth to you, in monetary terms?” An individual asked such a question
would most likely balk at even attempting to think about the value of his
life in terms of money unless he was an advocate of such classical decision
models beforehand. Even a naive subject who wished to be cooperative
might have a hard time ‹guring out how to think about even beginning to
translate the value of his life into monetary terms. If such a person asked
the analyst for help in making this transition, the decision analyst might
say, attempting to be helpful: “How did you get here today? Did you
drive? Don’t you realize that you risked your life by approximately 1 in
50,000 per year by driving here in your car today? If you are willing to risk
your life for mere transport, what is so dif‹cult about translating that
value into monetary terms?” At this point, the subject may be less con-
fused, but will certainly be more depressed and probably angry at the deci-
sion analyst as well for making him think about his life so callously. Thus,
even in this simple example, it is possible to see some of the dif‹culties that
naive subjects might encounter in determining utility. Yet some of these
same obstacles are frequently present for many analysts who attempt to
20      Risk-Taking in International Politics

accurately apply classical decision models to dif‹cult, personal, or other-
wise highly evocative and important questions. Even under more mundane
circumstances, people still ‹nd it fairly complex to assess utility at all, chal-
lenging to understand its implications for everyday behavior, and even
more dif‹cult to translate these values into monetary, or similarly objec-
tive, terms.
      Thus, it is possible to see that people often fail in the most basic
requirements of subjective expected utility theory, namely providing accu-
rate and reliable assessments of utility. Because it is so very dif‹cult for
people to assess utilities, analysis rests on a much stronger foundation
when it rede‹nes utilities on the basis of psychological theory and experi-
mentation, such as that provided by prospect theory.
      In this way, prospect theory advances the notion of utility in a useful
and accurate direction. Prospect theory adds the insight that utility curves
differ in domains of gain from those in domains of loss. Moreover, the
shape of prospect theory’s value curves are similar across individuals. As a
result, an analyst need not know an individual decision maker’s particular
utility in each case; once the domain is clear, predictions of risk propensity
become possible regardless of the individual decision maker’s particular
utility. Thus, while prospect theory may appear to be less analytically rig-
orous and precise than expected utility models, it is in fact suf‹ciently pre-
cise to allow for prediction on the basis of whether a decision takes place
in the domain of gains or losses. Analytically, prospect theory is also more
adaptable than a subjective expected utility model that would require
greater information about the individual utility curve before prediction
would become possible.11
      Prospect theory is designed to explain a common pattern of choice. It
is descriptive and empirical in nature. Prospect theory looks at two parts
of decision making: the editing, or framing, phase, and the evaluation
phase. The editing phase encompasses what are widely known as framing
effects. The evaluation phase involves the decision process of choosing
among options; this decision is in›uenced by two processes, one related to
subjective value, the other to perceptual likelihood. The following section
looks at these three processes in more depth.

Framing Effects

Framing, or editing, is the ‹rst phase of prospect theory. This initial phase
leads to a representation of the acts, outcomes, and contingencies that are
associated with a particular choice problem. Framing involves a number
of basic operations that simplify and provide a context for choice.
     Framing effects refer to the way in which a choice, or an option, can
                                                     Prospect Theory      21

be affected by the order or manner in which it is presented to a decision
maker. This is a crucial concept for a number of reasons. In many situa-
tions, a decision maker does not know the relevant options that are avail-
able to her. She must construct and ‹gure out what the options are or have
this done for her prior to choice. In some sense, this activity of determin-
ing and constructing the available options constitutes the heart of creative
decision making.
     Choice can be affected by relatively trivial manipulations in the con-
struction of available options. Most rational decision makers would argue
that seemingly innocuous transformations, such as the order in which
options are presented, should not substantively affect their choice deci-
sions. The paradox is that framing effects are often embedded in decision
problems in such a way that few decision makers realize the dispropor-
tionate impact that these framing effects have on them. Decision makers
frequently remain unaware of these framing effects and resort to intuitive
assessments of predetermined options because it is often impossible for
them to recognize the way in which more rational procedures are being
violated in the original determination of these preframed options. Thus,
any descriptively adequate model of choice must be sensitive to these fram-
ing effects.
     A couple of examples serve to illustrate the impact of framing on
choice. In most of the experiments that demonstrate these phenomena,
money, in the form of payoffs, bets, and gambles, is used to demonstrate
the ‹ndings. However, in the case of framing, it has been shown that deci-
sions about life and death are affected as readily and as profoundly as deci-
sions about money. Two experiments serve to demonstrate these ‹ndings.
     The ‹rst experiment asked people to pretend that they were responsi-
ble for making public policy in the face of a major ›u epidemic that was
expected to kill 600 people. They were asked to decide between two differ-
ent programs that were each designed to contain this epidemic. The
choices were presented to the ‹rst group as follows: policy A will save 200
people; policy B has a one-third chance that 600 people will be saved, and
a two-thirds chance that no one will be saved. In this case, 72 percent chose
the ‹rst option. The second group was presented with these choices: policy
A will cause 400 people to die; policy B has a one-third chance that no one
will die; and a two-thirds chance that 600 people will die. In this case, 78
percent chose the second option. When these two option sets are com-
pared, it is obvious that they present the exact same “net” outcome; the
only difference lies in the framing of the options. Clearly, the discrepancy
in results can only be attributed to framing effects, since there was no
change in the expected value between the options presented.12
     In another example, physicians were asked whether they would treat
22      Risk-Taking in International Politics

lung cancer with radiation or surgery. In one condition, doctors were told
that surgery carried a 90 percent immediate survival rate, and a 34 percent
5-year survival rate. In this experiment, subjects were told that all patients
survived radiation, and that 22 percent remained alive after 5 years. In a
second condition, respondents were told that 10 percent of patients die
during surgery and 66 percent die by the end of 5 years. With radiation, no
one dies during the therapy, but 78 percent die within 5 years. Once again,
the two choice sets differ only in the way the problem is presented, or
framed, to decision makers. Again, the results are strikingly different
across options. In the ‹rst, “survival,” frame, 18 percent chose radiation;
in the second, “mortality,” frame, 49 percent chose radiation.13 This exam-
ple is particularly striking because it involves real choices concerning life
and death outcomes. Moreover, when the options are presented side by
side, it is obvious that an individual attempting to maximize his or her
long-term expected value is best served by surgery. What is also noticeable
in both examples is that in each case, when the alternatives are placed side
by side at the same time, the optimal choice is rendered transparent.
     What does framing consist of and how does it operate? Tversky and
Kahneman write, “Framing is controlled by the manner in which the
choice problem is presented as well as by the norms, habits, and expectan-
cies of the decision maker.”14 These norms and habits can be quite idio-
syncratic to the particular decision maker, and his expectancies can be
signi‹cantly affected by many cognitive biases. However, framing opera-
tions concerning the manner in which choice problems are presented can
be described systematically.15
     The purpose behind framing, or editing, various options, is to sim-
plify the evaluation of choices that are available to a decision maker. This
editing is done through the use of several kinds of procedures, the most
important of which are acceptance and segregation, but also including
such mechanisms as coding, combination, and cancellation.
     In recent expositions of prospect theory, Tversky and Kahneman
have further distilled the essence of framing effects to two basic functions:
segregation and acceptance.16 Acceptance argues that once a decision
maker is presented with a reasonable construction of a choice problem,
she is not likely to recast it. In other words, a decision maker is most likely
to accept whatever framing of options is presented as the most appropriate
formulation of the given decision and not be prone to second-guess the
presentation of choices. There are a few exceptions to this rule, as when
there is a particularly familiar way to construct an option. For example, it
is customary to discuss “unemployment” ‹gures, not “employment” ones.
Nonetheless, these familiar presentations become less common as the
choice becomes more novel in nature. Note the opportunity such accep-
                                                       Prospect Theory       23

tance offers for a manipulative political advisor or rival to obtain personal
gains through the mere control of the choice options that are presented as
     Segregation is best captured by the idea that when people make
choices, they tend to focus on the factors at hand that seem most relevant
to the immediate problem; decision makers do not tend to adequately
account for related factors that may have an actual impact on the outcome
but do not appear to be directly relevant to the speci‹c choice at hand.
With the ›u experiment, for example, not many decision makers faced
with such a choice would ‹rst ask about the overall probability that this ›u
might not take hold in this population at all. While seemingly irrelevant to
the decision about what to do if it does arrive, the overall probability of
how likely it is that the ›u will hit is not inconsequential in determining
how much should be spent to combat it before an epidemic occurs.
     Coding refers to people’s tendency to categorize outcomes in terms of
gains and losses, rather than in terms of ‹nal absolute states of wealth or
welfare. This is intuitive to any fan of competitive sports. Your team’s ‹nal
score is irrelevant without knowing whether it is higher or lower than the
opponent’s score. In this case, the opponent’s score serves as the reference
point by which to evaluate your team’s performance. In the end, it doesn’t
matter whether it was your team’s highest score ever, if the total is still less
than the other team’s score.17
     Combination is an editing strategy that refers to the tendency of peo-
ple to add together the likelihood of choices that present identical out-
comes. For example, if a person lives in a part of the country with a 10 per-
cent chance of dying in an earthquake and a 10 percent chance of dying in
a ‹re in a given year, that person will evaluate potential moves to a part of
the country with a 10 percent likelihood of dying in a tornado assuming a
20 percent chance of dying in an earthquake or ‹re by staying in the same
     Cancellation refers to the discounting involved in evaluating choices
that carry similar outcomes. If one part of an option is the same across
choice sets, that aspect tends to be ignored in evaluating prospects. For
example: one route home carries a 1 percent chance of being injured in a
car crash and a 10 percent chance of being killed by a gunman; another
route home carries a 10 percent chance of being killed by a gunman and a
20 percent chance of being mugged. The likelihood of being killed by a
gunman is then ignored, in essence, because it is the same across cases, and
the decision then becomes one between a 1 percent chance of injury in a
car accident and a 20 percent chance of being held up. The similar option
is canceled out for purposes of choice between options.
     Other editing operations include simpli‹cation and detection of dom-
24      Risk-Taking in International Politics

inance. Simpli‹cation refers not only to mathematical rounding of proba-
bilities but discarding very unlikely alternatives as well. Detection of dom-
inance re›ects the almost unconscious habit of dismissing alternatives that
provide a less valuable outcome on each dimension than other alternatives
that are available.
      Because editing makes decision making more ef‹cient, it occurs fre-
quently. However, the order in which these various operations take place
can differ, and the sequence of processing itself might easily affect the out-
come of the evaluation process. Once an option is canceled, it may not
reappear later to be coded as a gain or loss, even if the context changes to
make the canceled option viable once again. For example, if a person
makes a decision not to pursue a graduate education because he doesn’t
have enough money, coming into a subsequent ‹nancial windfall in the
wake of a wealthy relative’s death may not prompt an immediate reevalu-
ation of the earlier education option, because this prospect had been pre-
viously canceled from consideration. In this way, sequencing of framing
processes can affect ‹nal options by altering the initial context in which
the choices are presented.
      These editing operations, which constitute the framing of a problem,
are important because of the way in which they can affect choice. Coding
alone can determine the relevant reference point and help to de‹ne the out-
comes, acts, and contingencies associated with a choice. Merely by includ-
ing some and excluding other options from consideration, the process of
framing itself creates the very choices that are understood to be available
to a decision maker at a given time.
      While the implications of framing for risk perception and assessment
will be examined in greater detail below, a couple of examples at this point
prove illustrative. People engage in unconscious coding and framing all the
time. Advertising, in some sense, is little more than structuring the presen-
tation of a product within a context designed to highlight its superiority
over competitive options in the most memorable and salient way. To do
this, the advertiser must frame his product within an image that will be
readily invoked in a purchase context and that will remind the consumer
why this particular product is better than the competition, because of
price, status, quality, or whatever aspect is considered advantageous, given
market research. In a more personal domain, people constantly frame
information they receive and persuasions they attempt, often without even
being aware of it. Oftentimes, gossip people hear is framed in terms of its
source, because the source may have something to gain by harming the
reputation of the person being discussed.
      What are the political implications of framing? Choice can be manip-
ulated by the order and presentation of the options available, without
                                                      Prospect Theory       25

changing the substantive content of the information. In this way, framing
becomes a powerful mechanism by which influential advisors can struc-
ture the choices, and thus in›uence the decisions, of decision makers.18
Manipulation of framing can have profound effects on outcome, and
therefore sophisticated practitioners can invoke these effects to their
strategic advantage.19 In this way, framing can bias decisions in systematic
and predictable ways. For example, it may be possible to frame a favored
option in the most positive terms, or to position a preferred option against
much less desirable choices without including more attractive options for
consideration. This can be done in simple and subtle ways: favored options
are enhanced by easy comparison; nonfavored options are helped by com-
plicated comparison; additional options hurt similar choices more than
different ones; and so on.20
      Framing demonstrates the process by which certain prospects become
labeled as potential options while others are disregarded from considera-
tion. Indeed, there may be a systematic bias in the kinds of prospects that
are elevated to the status of seriously considered options; if this is so, such
additional biases in the decision-making process become worthy of atten-
tion and possibly intervention.
      Why is it that framing effects are considered to be counternormative?
The primary reason is that frame changes can elicit changes in preference
that violate rational choice theories requiring axioms of invariance to
operate. With framing effects, people will make different choices based
solely on the order of presentation. In other words, the same decision can
elicit different choices depending on how the question is framed;21 this
‹nding is in total contradiction to any normative theory of decision mak-
ing. What is more, if people are shown that they were in›uenced by fram-
ing effects, they agree that they should not have been so affected by them.
      From the perspective of normative decision making, these ‹ndings
are disturbing. As Tversky and Kahneman write:

        [D]ecisionmakers are not normally aware of the potential effects of
     different decision frames on their preference . . . Individuals who face
     a decision problem and have a de‹nite preference (i) might have a dif-
     ferent preference in a different framing of the same problem, (ii) are
     normally unaware of alternative frames and of their potential effects
     on the relative attractiveness of options, (iii) would wish their prefer-
     ences to be independent of frame, but (iv) are often uncertain how to
     resolve undetected inconsistencies . . .
        Further complexities arise in the normative analysis, because the
     framing of an action sometimes affects the actual experience of its
     outcomes . . . The framing of acts and outcomes can also re›ect the
26      Risk-Taking in International Politics

     acceptance or rejection of responsibility for particular consequences,
     and the deliberate manipulation of framing is commonly used as an
     instrument of self-control. When framing in›uences the experience of
     consequences, the adoption of a decision frame is an ethically
     signi‹cant act.22

In short, although people believe that their decisions should not be
affected by simply changing the frame of the decision problem, they are
manipulated by framing effects nonetheless.23
      Two important points should be emphasized. One is that framing can
be a purely cognitive constraint. Once people recognize their failure of
invariance, they often agree that their decisions should have been made
independent of the framing of the problem. So framing is not necessarily a
motivated phenomenon, but can be a purely cognitive occurrence. In other
words, it is a psychophysical property of choice.24
      Second, from the perspective of intervention designed to reduce or
prevent such undesired framing effects, choice should be presented to oth-
ers, or to oneself, from a variety of frames simultaneously in order to help
determine the most accurate and consistent preferences.25 If the same
problem is presented at the same time, framed in a couple of different
ways, it is possible to recognize the impact of framing effects in a more
transparent way. This was noticeable in the experimental ‹ndings, pre-
sented earlier, about choosing between radiation and surgery in the treat-
ment of lung cancer.26 Once the choices were presented side by side, in
both survival and mortality terms, the better long-term survival strategy of
surgery became obvious. Such a strategy of simultaneous presentation
might render framing effects more transparent and thus reduce the extent
to which a decision maker is in›uenced by them, without knowledge or
      One of the methodological quandaries in attempting to document the
impact of framing effects on choice is the dif‹culty of predicting how peo-
ple will choose to frame any given issue or choice, given the myriad of pos-
sible alternatives. Fischhoff experimented with predicting frames by argu-
ing that “in order to predict behavior in less controlled situations, one
must be able to anticipate how problems will be represented and what
frames people will use to represent them.”27 Fischhoff’s experiment met
with little success outside the robust ‹nding that “people do not readily
adapt to absorbing losses.”
      Fischhoff explains his dif‹culty in predicting frames by noting indi-
viduals’ inability to introspect accurately about what factors affect their
choices and decisions. Much experimental evidence demonstrates that
although people may be able to generate reasons after the event for why
                                                      Prospect Theory       27

they behaved in a particular way, they may not recognize the real factors
that control their behavior while they are in the situation itself.28 Simple
introspection con‹rms the intuition that it is more dif‹cult for people to
predict than explain their own, or others’, behavior. However, once a per-
son generates an explanation for his behavior, he is very likely to then
believe that the explanation is an accurate one.29
     Fischhoff argues that his experiment failed to elicit the desired result
because the research methodology he used was not the most effective way
of predicting frames. While his ‹ndings are discouraging from a predictive
standpoint, it may be that more substantive knowledge about a particular
decision maker’s history or goals might help to predict frames more accu-
rately. In the cases that follow, it becomes clear that historical analogies
play an important role in determining the framing of an issue for many
decision makers. Information on the particular historical analogies that
are invoked by a leader in explaining behavior can often provide clues as
to how the issue is being framed by that person.
     Cases that analysts are most interested in explaining are also the ones
that are most dif‹cult to predict in general, regardless of whether one is
using a psychological or a rational choice model.30 The surprise with
which almost every analyst greeted the demise of the Soviet Union and the
end of the cold war is proof enough of the dif‹culty of predicting even very
large scale and terribly important occurrences. While it may be possible to
explain such events post hoc, it appears more challenging to predict behav-
ior beforehand, regardless of the model that is used to generate such pre-
     Framing is important not only because of its direct in›uence on the
choices available, but also because of its indirect effect on choice, through
the value and weighting functions of prospect theory. These functions are
part of the second, evaluation, phase of prospect theory.

Value Function

Once prospects are edited, or framed, the decision maker evaluates these
options and makes a choice among them. The evaluation phase of
prospect theory encompasses two parts, the value function and the weight-
ing function. The proposed value function is illustrated in ‹gure 1.
     This value function has three crucial characteristics. The ‹rst is that it
is de‹ned in terms of gains and losses relative to the reference point, not in
terms of ‹nal absolute wealth or welfare. This is quite different than
expected utility theory, which assumes that the ‹nal asset position is
de‹nitive in calculating subjective utility and predicting choice. Emphasis
on change from the reference point in prospect theory is in keeping with
We do not have permission to display the
graphic appearing in this location.
basic human perceptual processes, which tend to notice shifts more than
resting states. In prospect theory, value is a function of this change, in a
positive or negative direction, rather than a result of absolute welfare, as is
the case with subjective expected utility theory. This focus on change
emphasizes the importance of the starting point, which in prospect theory
is referred to as the reference point. Change is evaluated relative to that
position, but value itself derives from the difference between that starting,
or reference, point and the amount of any positive or negative shift away
from it; again, this differs from expected utility theory, which considers
value to derive exclusively from ‹nal states, and not the magnitude or
direction of change from the status quo.31 Recall the psychophysical ana-
logue for the evaluation of change in prospect theory. Just as perception of
sound or light is more sensitive to change than static intensity, so are
assessments of welfare more reactive to change than absolute outcome in
prospect theory.
      The second important aspect of an S-shaped value curve is that it is
S-shaped; that is, it is convex below the reference point and concave above
it. In practical terms, the status quo typically serves as the operative refer-
ence point.32 To be clear, the right-hand side of the graph refers to the
domain of gains; the left-hand side of the graph represents the domain of
losses. The slope measures the sensitivity to change; the curve is maximally
sensitive to change nearest the origin and progressively less sensitive as it
moves away from this reference point. Thus, for any given change, there is
more impact closer to the starting point than farther away from it.
      This ‹nding is intuitively con‹rmed by the observation that the dif-
ference between $10 and $20 has more psychological impact than the same
                                                      Prospect Theory      29

ten-dollar increase from $1,110 to $1,120. This decreasing marginal utility
re›ects a general psychophysical principle concerning the evaluation of
outcomes, whereby comparable changes have a greater impact closer to
the steady state of adaptation than farther away from it.
      In theoretical terms, the S-shaped curve means that people tend to be
risk averse in the domain of gains and risk seeking in the domain of losses;
this is the crux of prospect theory. In short, prospect theory predicts that
domain affects risk propensity.
      The third aspect of the value function is the asymmetric nature of the
value curve; it is steeper in the domain of losses than in that of gains. This
implies relative loss aversion. In other words, losing hurts more than a
comparable gain pleases. For example, losing ten dollars hurts more than
‹nding ten dollars grati‹es. In fact, loss aversion is intimately related to
research on the phenomenology of happiness.33 Individuals are under-
stood to adapt to the steady state, or status quo, relatively rapidly. They
are typically relatively satis‹ed with it, as well as averse to losing any
component part of their present position. Loss aversion is exempli‹ed by
the endowment effect, whereby people value what they possess to a
greater degree than they value an equally attractive alternative. This
endowment bias makes equal trade unattractive. It also presents a bias
toward the status quo in almost any negotiating context. This phenome-
non holds interesting implications for political battles that involve such
things as negotiations over territorial possession rights or weapons in
arms control talks.34

Weighting Function

The second component of the evaluation phase of prospect theory is the
weighting function. It is graphically represented in ‹gure 2. In this second
part of the evaluation phase of prospect theory, each outcome is given a
decision weight. This weight does not correspond directly to traditional
notions of probability.
     In making a decision, a decision maker multiplies the value of each
outcome by its decision weight, just as expected utility maximizers multi-
ply utility by subjective probability. However, decision weights in prospect
theory differ from those in subjective expected utility theory because deci-
sion weights do not obey any of the rational choice probability maxims.
Decision weights do not serve solely as measures of the perceived likeli-
hood of an outcome, as probability does in subjective expected utility the-
ory. Rather, decision weights represent an empirically derived assessment
of how people actually arrive at their sense of likelihood, rather than a nor-
mative standard about how they should derive probability, as subjective
expected utility theories advocate. However, decision weights can be
We do not have permission to display the
graphic appearing in this location.
affected by factors, such as ambiguity, that impact probability assessments
in rational choice theories as well.35
     The weighting function in prospect theory has several important fea-
tures. First, the function does not operate consistently near the endpoints,
which can be thought of as absolute certainty on the one end and absolute
impossibility on the other. Thus, the function is de‹ned as (1) = 1 and (0) =
0. In other words, people have dif‹culty with probability at extreme ranges:
sometimes people may treat highly likely but uncertain events as certain; on
other occasions, people may treat highly unlikely events as impossible.
     More speci‹cally, events that are judged to be either certain or impos-
sible receive much heavier psychological weights than other events. The
most dramatic illustration of this is provided by a study that showed that
individuals would pay a great deal more money to remove the last bullet
from a gun in a game of Russian roulette than to remove the fourth bullet,
even though each removal reduced the risk by the same percentage, one-
sixth. Regardless, eliminating the risk to 0 percent feels more important
than merely diminishing it to 50 percent, even if the percentage of reduc-
tion is the same in both cases; indeed, this response is not wrong from an
emotional perspective, only from a rational one.36 This example illustrates
that people have a hard time comprehending and evaluating the meaning
of probability with extremely improbable or almost certain events; in
effect, there is a limit to the decision weight that people can effectively
                                                     Prospect Theory      31

attach to either the most or the least likely events. The result is that the
evaluation of the likelihood of these extreme events becomes more biased
than that of events that are only somewhat likely. Both the surgery and ›u
experiments illustrate this argument nicely as well.
      This is where editing can come into play, as highly unlikely events are
simply treated as though they were impossible and are thus ignored, and
highly likely events are treated as if they offered certain outcomes.37 The
problem with this strategy lies in both directions; very unlikely events do
occur occasionally, and very likely events do not happen every so often.
An example of an extremely unlikely event that actually did happen can be
seen in the tragic explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, where the com-
bination of many highly effective systems created a situation where failure
was more likely than it appeared; a hundred systems with a one in a hun-
dred chance of failure results in almost certain disaster of the system over
      The ›ip side of this problem occurs when almost certain events some-
times do not actually take place. This occurrence was artfully captured in
the famous photograph of Truman holding the newspaper that read,
“Dewey beats Truman.” Anyone who has bought or sold a house knows
that even when everything appears to be progressing as planned, and all
the agents consider the sale to be a “done deal,” something can happen
with the ‹nancing and the whole agreement can evaporate in the ‹nal
      The second important aspect of the weighting function is that low
probabilities are overweighted while high and medium probabilities are
subjectively underweighted. In other words, events that are not judged to
be very likely are given more importance than they deserve. This happens,
for example, when people place high risk assessments on an environmen-
tal toxin that has a very low probability of causing harm to any given indi-
vidual. Similarly, occurrences that are estimated to be “somewhat likely”
to “almost certain” are treated with less importance than they merit in the
decision-making process. An example of this is seen when people were
asked whether there are more homicides than suicides in the country every
year: most people will say that homicides kill more people than suicides
when in fact the opposite is true. Or they may claim that airplanes kill
more people than what is actually true.39 This is because low probability
events, especially when they provide vivid and salient representations (air-
planes, homicides), are overweighted, and high probability events (suicide,
car accidents) are relatively underweighted.
      This means that something that is perceived to be unlikely has more
impact on decision making than it normatively should. The classic exam-
ples of this are lotteries and insurance. In lotteries, people are willing to
32      Risk-Taking in International Politics

take a sure loss, however small, for the essentially nonexistent chance of a
huge gain. In this way, people can be risk seeking in gains when the prob-
ability of gain is low. In insurance, people are willing to take a sure loss in
the present to prevent the small likelihood of a larger loss in the future. In
this situation, people can be risk averse in losses when the probability of
loss is small. In both these situations, expected utility models might not
consider such behavior to be normative. However, prospect theory
accounts for these discrepancies by noting the extreme (over)weight and
attention that individuals give to small probabilities that potentially
involve either huge gains (winning the lottery) or huge losses (losing your
house in a ‹re). This phenomenon helps account for worst-case scenario
      Simultaneously, events that are, in actuality, quite likely have less
in›uence on decision making than they normatively ought. This helps
explain why many policies, such as gun control, are not pursued until after
a salient example of its failure is made public. For example, it was not until
James Brady, President Reagan’s Press Secretary, was shot in 1981, thus
becoming the active conservative poster image for the gun control lobby,
that the issue started to be taken seriously in Congress. Although Brady’s
injury did not increase the overall risk of handguns in society, the salience
of the issue was increased because of Brady’s position and visibility.
      In most cases, the weighting function contributes greatly to the risk
propensity dictated by the S-shaped value function. As Kahneman and
Tversky write:

        Underweighting of moderate and high probabilities relative to sure
     things contributes to risk aversion in gains by reducing the attractive-
     ness of positive gambles. The same effect also contributes to risk seek-
     ing in losses by attenuating the aversiveness of negative gambles. Low
     probabilities, however, are overweighted, and very low probabilities
     are either overweighted quite grossly or neglected altogether . . . The
     overweighting of low probabilities reverses the pattern described
     above: It enhances the value of long shots and ampli‹es the aversive-
     ness of a small chance of a severe loss. Consequently, people are often
     risk seeking in dealing with improbable gains and risk averse in deal-
     ing with unlikely losses. Thus, the characteristics of decision weights
     contribute to the attractiveness of both lottery tickets and insurance

      One of the consequences of the weighting function is that probabilis-
tic changes in the midranges are undervalued relative to equal changes that
manage to transform an event from merely probable into one that is either
                                                      Prospect Theory       33

certain or impossible. This has been called the certainty effect. In other
words, reducing a 50 percent risk in half does not have the same impact as
eliminating a 25 percent risk, as demonstrated by the example of removing
bullets in a game of Russian roulette. Obviously, in policy-making deci-
sions, any change in likelihood that makes an outcome either impossible
or certain promises to have the greatest impact.
     The pseudocertainty effect is another important aspect of prospect
theory, whereby “an event that is actually uncertain is weighted as if it
were certain.”41 Again, this phenomenon contributes to the predilection
many decision makers have for worst-case-scenario planning. This ten-
dency can be particularly problematic in political situations where weight-
ing effects are exacerbated by the use of representative analogies. If a
leader believes that another is certainly like, say, Hitler, then many subse-
quent assessments and decisions will be based on assumptions ›owing
from such a characterization, which may not, in fact, prove accurate. This
was the case, for example, with the European leaders who believed that
Nasser was a latter-day Hitler during the Suez crisis, and yet this prophecy
was not borne out by subsequent history. Note that this bias can serve to
make someone appear to be either more or less malicious than he may be
in reality.

Application to International Politics

One of the central bene‹ts of invoking psychological theories for under-
standing political events is the superior descriptive power that psychologi-
cal theories offer. Psychological models do not require an analyst to pre-
tend that people will, or should, act in a certain way that is
counterintuitive. Rather, psychological models rest on empirical testing of
how people actually make the decisions and choices they do in all kinds of
situations. The value of theory developed on such empirical testing lies in
its validity, accuracy, and authenticity.
      Now that the substance of prospect theory has been discussed, it is
appropriate to turn to the question of its applicability to political issues in
the international arena. As noted in the introduction, this study sets out to
conduct a parallel demonstration of theory, to illustrate that prospect the-
ory can order evidence in a compelling way across cases and over time.
This method is more appropriate to this study than in-depth case study
methodology because establishing patterns across cases is more convinc-
ing and persuasive in demonstrating the fruitfulness of applying prospect
theory to international relations. In addition, this study also seeks to test
the external validity of prospect theory to the real world. In this way, the
goal of this work is to determine whether or not prospect theory presents
34      Risk-Taking in International Politics

the accurate and powerful predictive and explanatory tool for understand-
ing decision making under conditions of risk in international contexts that
it does in a psychological laboratory.
      Needless to say, there are several limitations to utilizing a psycholog-
ical theory to illuminate political decision making. Not the least of these
considerations is the extent to which political demands can compound
psychological biases. Prospect theory is relatively new; although it has
been applied extensively in economic models, it has not really been well
tested in explicitly political arenas. Indeed, one of the challenges of this
work is to demonstrate the applicability of prospect theory outside exper-
imental conditions.
      There is no technical or theoretical reason why the theory can not be
applied well beyond the monetary gambles that de‹ned its characteristics.
The theory can be applied to decisions where the probabilities are not
known, unlike monetary gambles where probabilities are determined in
advance of play. Analysts must remember, however, that decision weights,
although tied to subjective probabilities, are not technically the same as
such probability estimates, and they fall prey to many biases that do not
enter into consideration when all the probabilities are known in advance.42
In applying prospect theory beyond the realm of monetary gambles, the
goal is to show that the expectations remain the same: outcomes are eval-
uated in terms of gains or losses relative to the status quo reference point;
and this domain, in turn, affects risk propensity in systematic and pre-
dictable ways.
      There is clear empirical support for prospect theory at an individual
level in the laboratory. Although many people are intrinsically suspicious
of classroom ‹ndings, the mirror of introspection seems to support intu-
itively the validity of the experimental ‹ndings in this particular case.
Decision makers are not immune to the effects of psychological tendencies
merely by virtue of their roles. Indeed, there is an extensive literature
investigating the impact of expertise on the ability to overcome some of the
biases under discussion. While greater exposure to certain information can
occasionally help an expert to greater accuracy than a novice in judgments
of frequency,43 other ‹ndings show no difference in the way that experts
and novices are affected by framing or in how they respond to incomplete
information.44 In most cases, experts are found to display essentially the
same biases in judgment and decision making as college students.45 Susan
Fiske and her colleagues have argued that experts have better organized
knowledge and thus may have more space in memory for inconsistent
information.46 However, there is empirical evidence that elite beliefs are
remarkably resistant to change, even in the face of dramatic changes in the
                                                     Prospect Theory      35

international environment.47 While there may be some difference between
expert and novice inferential strategies, they are not signi‹cant enough to
warrant excluding experts from the biases under discussion in this study by
virtue of their position. In fact, experts are more similar to than different
from novices in the way in which cognitive biases affect their judgment and
decision-making abilities.
      Prospect theory does not require that individual differences have no
impact or importance. Rather, prospect theory reintroduces the impor-
tance of the situation into the analysis of decision making. Prospect theory
relies on experimental evidence of mean differences between groups with
regard to the impact of domain on risk propensity to point to signi‹cant
preferences in choice above and beyond that which might be accounted for
by individual differences.48
      If the relative riskiness of response in international relations is
affected by the perceived domain of action (gains or losses), this ‹nding
has important implications for the way in which political questions should
be framed and presented to decision makers; this is particularly crucial if
normatively unacceptable biases need to be minimized in order to avoid
suboptimal decisions, and thus potentially hazardous outcomes. This is
certainly the case if a simple linguistic manipulation of the available
options early on might prevent a counternormative choice later. For this
reason, it is worthwhile to investigate the extent to which a decision
maker’s cognitive biases might affect his choices, and subsequently even
his state’s behavior, in systematic and predictable ways.
      Applying prospect theory to the international environment is an
attempt to conceptualize the nature of risk in a more productive manner.
If the predictions of prospect theory hold true in international settings, it
might then be possible to introduce procedural or institutional mecha-
nisms designed to compensate partially for such counternormative tenden-
cies as framing effects. These kinds of changes could have a very positive
in›uence on the decision-making process. For example, as discussed pre-
viously, it may be useful to present a decision maker with the same options
framed in several different ways simultaneously, so as to make framing
effects more transparent and thus less unconsciously in›uential on the
substance of decision making.


In seeking to apply prospect theory to international relations, this study
concentrates on the security arena, where decision making often takes
place under conditions of greatest risk. The goal is to see whether decision
36      Risk-Taking in International Politics

makers manifest systematic differences in risk propensity as a result of dif-
ferences in the perceived domain of action. This study will look at the pres-
ident’s risk-taking in the domain of gains and in the domain of losses.
      This work focuses on postwar American foreign policy behavior. For
purposes of this study, domain, coded as gains or losses relative to a refer-
ence point, is the “independent variable.” Risk propensity, categorized as
being either risk seeking or risk averse, is the “dependent variable.”
Domain causes risk propensity. If the theory holds, actors will be risk
averse if facing potential gains, and risk seeking when confronted with
potential losses.
      Needless to say, it is challenging to determine domain and risk in
ways that are not only independent of one another, but not tautological
either. In most cases, a decision maker’s behavior (words) offers the best
evidence for perceived domain; however, an actor’s assessment of domain
is often subjective, or suppressed for political reasons, and this constraint
must simply be admitted. However, when a public consensus concerning
domain is present, it increases the likelihood that such a consensus is
shared by the central decision maker, especially if he is sensitive to polls;
such consensus enhances con‹dence in the accurate characterization of a
given domain.
      In some sense, the problems faced by prospect theory in this matter
are no greater than those faced by scholars who prefer rational choice
modeling, which starts from a position of “revealed preferences.” Prospect
theory may appear to be less precise than rational choice theories claim to
be, but, in reality, prospect theory proves to be more analytically mal-
leable. This is because, with rational choice theories, utilities are notori-
ously dif‹cult to assess, and basic supporting axioms are frequently vio-
lated in individual behavior. Assessments of information are often
subjective and open to debate; merely applying mathematical formulas,
letters, and numbers to certain variables does not render those variables,
or their outcomes, any more “objective.” Most importantly, rational
choice models require an unwieldy amount of information, detail, and pre-
cision and may not be useful for this reason. Prospect theory requires only
knowledge of domain in order to predict risk propensity. Moreover, ratio-
nal choice models are vulnerable to different analysts structuring the same
problem in contradictory ways. In contrast, prospect theory builds on
experimental ‹ndings concerning human judgment and decision-making
behavior. In fact, it is worth remembering that experimental ‹ndings are
one of the few ways to de‹nitely establish causal links.49 Psychological
accuracy makes prospect theory a more realistic and manageable model.
Rational actor models, after all, invoke rationality assumptions that are
without question empirically invalid; prospect theory is not nearly so wan-
ton in its starting assumptions. As a result, prospect theory is suf‹ciently
                                                     Prospect Theory      37

rigorous to test in the international environment, and it is not as
intractable in assessing utility as are many rational choice models.


Domain refers to whether an action takes place in the perceived realm of
gains or of losses. Domain can be relatively objective or subjective. For
purposes of prospect theory, framing in domain is restricted to a sense of
whether the actor perceives himself to be acting from a position of gains or
losses. Gains or losses can be de‹ned by objective criteria, such as public
opinion polls. Domain can also be ascertained by subjective assessments
derived from memoirs, interviews, and archival materials. The problem in
international relations is that it is often impossible to tell the difference
between the objective and the subjective framing of domain. Polls are
examples of data that are often dif‹cult to characterize; results may be
considered “objective,” but how they are interpreted must clearly be
regarded as “subjective.” As a result, there can be confusion as to the
appropriate domain of action. This is especially important when the objec-
tive and subjective domains do not match. When this occurs, both types
will be noted, and differences in assessment will be highlighted.
     An additional complication in determining domain derives from the
fact that different people may use different criteria in order to de‹ne their
domain of action. For example, some presidents may consider their
domestic political support to be the crucial variable; international public
opinion may be irrelevant as long as the politician is certain that he can
win reelection at home. Positive international public opinion may be irrel-
evant to a president who has lost his domestic support; Richard Nixon
may have been held in high esteem by the leadership of the Soviet Union
and China in 1974, but this did not prevent him from being forced to
resign in the wake of the Watergate debacle. Different actors may look to
different appraisals in order to determine whether or not they are acting in
a realm of gains or losses. Obviously, this assessment can change over
time, as the situation changes, as decision makers use different measures of
success in different issue areas, or as leaders come to rely on certain indi-
cators as being more valid in certain situations or at different times than
others. In some cases, the judgment may be overwhelming, as when all
indicators show the person to be in deep trouble, as Johnson was during
Vietnam, or Nixon was during Watergate. However, in many other situa-
tions, the judgment is less clear and will depend on the best guess concern-
ing the criterion of most value to the actor. As always, the central concern
must focus on whether the decision maker is operating in a relative state of
gains or losses.
     As a result of the inherently subjective nature of perception, domain,
38      Risk-Taking in International Politics

like risk propensity and reference point, must be de‹ned case-by-case and
actor-by-actor. To assess a decision maker’s domain accurately, an analyst
needs to distinguish among the various criteria that different actors may
use to determine perceived domains of action. In many cases, the analyst
may be aided in this task by information about the relevant historical anal-
ogy that the decision maker is invoking in responding to the current situa-
tion. The perception that counts in this regard is that of the particular deci-
sion maker under investigation. In most cases in the postwar security
arena, this individual will be the president. More speci‹cally, the relevant
objective sources may include: the content of speeches; archival material;
public opinion polls; congressional indicators, such as the number of over-
rides on vetoes; economic indicators, such as the stock market index and
in›ation or unemployment rates; newspaper editorials; and world public
opinion as manifested through diplomatic channels. Sources of subjective
assessments of domain might come from interviews, private memoirs,
archival letters, diaries, transcripts, and foreign relations documents. The
danger in using these personal, historical sources is that they run the risk
of being informed by retrospective bias, whereby leaders may selectively
remember factors that show them off in the best light. From this perspec-
tive, it is easiest and best to trust information from a memoir that makes a
leader look bad; he is very unlikely to have a good reason for portraying
himself in a negative light unless it is the truth. The most relevant or infor-
mative of these indicators can be used to assess how the decision maker felt
about the environment he faced and whether or not his assessment
matched the objective criteria. In this way, different evidence will be used
for different cases.
      Clearly, there may be some technical problems with this approach.
However, real-life decision making rarely mimics the precision of an
experimental laboratory, where all variables can be controlled. Rather, it
is only possible to work with the information that is available and make
the best judgments possible. Prospect theory’s value lies in the variables
that the theory points to as signi‹cant for analysis and discussion. To the
extent that these variables differ from those investigated under more tradi-
tional paradigms, it offers the possibility of shedding light on previously
ignored, but potentially important, factors in decision making, such as


Risk is an even more dif‹cult variable to operationalize than domain. The
central concern is fear of tautological de‹nition; risk cannot be determined
by domain, on the one hand, or by outcome, on the other. In operational-
                                                      Prospect Theory      39

izing risk in an independent fashion, an economic de‹nition of risk will be
invoked; risk will be analyzed in terms of relative variance in outcome. A
choice is relatively risk seeking if it has greater outcome variance in pro-
moted values than alternative options. For example, if one option presents
a 50 percent chance of winning $5 and a 50 percent chance of losing $10, it
is less risky than a gamble which offers a 50 percent prospect of winning
$50 and a 50 percent chance of losing $100. In this case, neither the posi-
tive nor the negative outcome of the ‹rst gamble is as extreme as that
offered by the second; it is thus a riskier choice to play the second bet,
regardless of outcome and independent of domain.
      The dif‹culty is that choices vary in both probability and desirability.
Another problem is that political decision makers never present their
options in cardinal form, with concrete subjective probability assessments
attached to each choice as decision analysts would prefer.
      Most of the time, all that political decision makers offer is the fact
that one policy option is preferable to another in a particular issue area.
Yet military risks can con›ict with political ones and so on. It can be
dif‹cult to separate out these factors, but one way to compare across
policies that offer different “expected” values across issue areas is
through the use of ordinal comparisons. For example, let’s say a policy-
maker is trying to decide between policies A and B. Policy A generates
the best outcome if it works, and the worst outcome if it doesn’t. Policy
B, on the other hand, does not offer as good an outcome as A if it works,
but the outcome of B is not as bad as the outcome in A if B fails. So, an
analysis of these options might proceed as follows. First of all, B is a less
risky choice than A because there is less variance in the outcome: the best
of B is not as good as the best of A, but the worst of B is not as bad as the
worst of A. A graphic hierarchy of these options might appear as illus-
trated below:


     Second, using this method of analysis, it becomes possible to compare
across policies that offer different expected values by comparing the ordi-
nal ranking on the issue area of major concern. For example, if policies B
and W are compared, and all possible outcomes for B are superior to all
possible outcomes for W, then B is clearly the risk-averse and obviously
better, more “rational” choice. A graphic depiction of the hierarchy of
such an option set might look similar to the one presented below:
40      Risk-Taking in International Politics


      Clearly, B is the superior choice in rational terms. This is because B
maximizes all outcomes in a way W is not able to accomplish. The worst
outcome from B will always prove superior to the best outcome from W.
Using this strategy, it becomes possible to compare policies in terms of
variance in outcome values without having to precisely determine a deci-
sion maker’s subjective probabilities, and without having to risk tautology
in the de‹nition of risk.50 This perspective also acknowledges that differ-
ent policies possess different “expected values” in their outcomes. In many
circumstances, choices are made precisely because they promote the great-
est expected value, and not for any other reason. In these instances,
prospect theory may provide no additional insight over standard political
analysis, as when a decision maker picks an option with the greatest
expected value while acting cautiously in a domain of gains.
      Given this method of determining risky choice, relative risk propen-
sity in this study will be categorized in terms of risk-seeking and risk-
averse behavior. The riskiness of the option chosen will be assessed relative
to that of the other options perceived to be available at the time in terms of
the variance in outcome just described.
      The second bene‹t of this de‹nition is that it takes into account the
other options that are considered. This is important in order to see if the
framing of options appears to have an effect on the substance of the deci-
sions that are made. In this way, it may be possible to demonstrate that
risk assessment changes as the frame changes. By looking at risk propen-
sity in terms of the other options that are considered at the time, framing
effects may be thrown into illuminating relief.

Reference Point

The reference point is a critical concept in assessing gains and losses; thus,
it is central to the notions of domain and risk. The reference point is usu-
ally the current steady state, or status quo, to which a person has become
accustomed. This status quo point can be in›uenced by a number of dif-
ferent factors, including cultural norms and expectations. Moreover, it
might be affected by such variables as personal levels of aspiration. These
considerations may or may not be realistic in nature.51 Some expectations,
though unrealistic, may still have an impact on the choices an individual
makes. For example, however unrealistic it may be to expect to obtain an
                                                      Prospect Theory      41

academic job in a bad market, many individuals still pursue graduate
degrees. In this case, it is up to the analyst to sort out whether the student
is irrational, grandiose, or merely risk seeking in a domain of losses, as
prospect theory would predict.
      The de‹nition of the reference point is crucial to the determination of
domain. Most importantly, shifts in reference point can affect de‹nitions
of domain. As Kahneman and Tversky write:

       There are situations in which gains and losses are coded relative to
    an expectation or aspiration level that differs from the status quo . . .
    A change of reference point alters the preference order for prospects.
    In particular, the present theory implies that a negative translation of
    a choice problem, such as arises from incomplete adaptation to recent
    losses, increases risk seeking in some situations . . . This analysis sug-
    gests that a person who has not made peace with his losses is likely to
    accept gambles that would be unacceptable to him otherwise . . . a
    failure to adapt to losses or to attain an expected gain induces risk

     At this point, an example may be helpful to illustrate the impact of
expectation or aspiration on the assessment of reference point. A junior
faculty member can survive on “promise” for a few years after being hired.
During this time, the young professor need not have a long publication list
in order to be in a domain of gains. However, by the time the tenure clock
ticks away, promise is no longer an adequate measure of success. While the
objective reality of the publications record may not have changed at all
(indeed, that is the cause of concern for the tenure committee), the refer-
ence point has shifted. Time slowly but surely affects the way “promise”
translates into “disappointment” by continually shifting the reference
point from the realm of reality into that of aspiration.
     In this way, level of aspiration can affect the assessment of reference
point, just as social norms and cultural values might as well. Nonetheless,
in most circumstances, the default reference point is typically the current
status quo.
     However, prospect theory itself is theoretically silent about the issue
of temporal change. Gains and losses are always evaluated relative to the
reference point. That is, the theory makes no comment on how the direc-
tion of change in the status quo affects the assessment of the reference
point. However, normal psychological theory would predict that the refer-
ence point would tend to gravitate, with time, to an adaptation point,
which would correspond to the new status quo. The issue then becomes the
period of lag time. During that time, things are still evaluated relative to
42      Risk-Taking in International Politics

the old status quo. This old status quo remains the reference point until
adaptation takes place. Moreover, loss aversion suggests that the lag will
last longer in adjusting to losses than to gains.53
      As with domain, the relevant reference point will have to be deter-
mined on a case-by-case basis; the reference point will have to be de‹ned
independently for each actor at each decision point, since each person may
have a different idea of the relevant status quo, even in the same objective
situation for reasons of expectation, as discussed previously. For example,
Eisenhower held a very different notion of the status quo during the Suez
crisis than did British and French leaders. By and large, however, the ref-
erence point will be de‹ned in relation to the central decision maker, which
in these cases is the president.

Loss Aversion

Because losses loom larger than gains in prospect theory, it is expected that
there will be greater focus and attention on real or feared losses than on
prospective or forgone gains. This phenomenon is predicted by the steep
convex shape of the value curve in the domain of losses. The impact of
such loss aversion is heightened by the fact that political punishment for
losses is generally greater than for failure to make gains.
     Loss aversion also suggests that it is much more dif‹cult for people to
adjust to losses than to gains.54 As a result, more energy will be spent try-
ing to avoid or recoup losses than will be devoted to consolidating, or
obtaining, new gains.
     Loss aversion induces a preference for the status quo in most situa-
tions. This property is particularly noticeable in negotiating and bargain-
ing contexts, such as arms control, but is certainly not limited in its effect
to those issue areas. The phenomenon of loss aversion is exacerbated by
other psychological tendencies as well. First, the differences between
options will seem more important if they are framed in terms of losses or
negative aspects rather than if they are framed in terms of positive aspects
or gains. Second, adding a loss to a particular choice will hurt it more than
adding an advantage will help it. In this way, it can be shown that sabo-
taging an undesired alternative becomes a much easier maneuver than
enhancing a favorable one. Lastly, a bene‹cial policy that is hindered by
even one small disadvantage may appear less attractive than another pol-
icy that boasts two much smaller positive qualities, but carries no possibil-
ity of a negative outcome.55
     Loss aversion raises an additional important point concerning frame
change and ambiguity effects. In many situations the status quo is unclear,
and in addition it may incorporate other subjective assessments, such as
expectations, as previously discussed. The real status quo might be up for
                                                      Prospect Theory       43

perceptual grabs, just as is the reference point upon which it is based. Rel-
evant de‹nitions of gains, losses, status quo, and reference point are
ambiguous and dynamic; they change from actor to actor and situation to
situation. The best effort to clarify these conceptions will be made on a
case-by-case basis, but all these de‹nitions are affected by framing effects
and subjective assessments that are not always clear or available.

Case Outline

The casework that follows constitutes an empirical investigation applying
prospect theory to international politics. Four examples are examined in
substance in the following chapters: two decisions from the Eisenhower
administration and two from the Carter administration. Both presidents
led the United States in the nuclear age, so it is possible to control for dif-
ferences in decision making that might result from the development of
such weapons of mass destruction. These presidents also come from dif-
ferent political parties, so the effect of af‹liation or, more broadly, ideol-
ogy on risk propensity can be roughly controlled for in these cases as well.
     These cases were chosen to differ along the lines of the independent
variable: one case from the domain of losses, and one from the domain of
gains, for each president. In the domain of losses, the cases are: Carter’s
decision to go ahead with the failed rescue mission of the hostages in Iran
in April 1980; and Eisenhower’s cover-up following the Soviet downing of
the U-2 American reconnaissance aircraft in May 1960. In the domain of
gains, the cases are: Carter’s decision to exclude the Shah of Iran from
entry into the country until October 1979; and Eisenhower’s decision to
resist his French and English allies in their military venture against Egypt-
ian President Nasser in the Suez crisis of 1956.
     The goal of this investigation is to analyze these domain-speci‹c cases
to determine whether the dependent variable, risk-taking behavior, differs
in accordance with the predictions of prospect theory along the indepen-
dent variable, domain. A graphic display of the central hypotheses might
appear as follows:

                  Risk Seeking        Risk Averse
     Gains                            PT predicts
     Losses       PT predicts

      As delineated, prospect theory expects risk seeking in the domain of
losses and risk aversion in the domain of gains.56 The cases were of interest
initially because the president’s behavior appeared to be anomalous and not
easily explicable from within the context of alternative analytic paradigms.
44      Risk-Taking in International Politics

      The application of prospect theory to each case that follows proceeds
in four parts. First, each chapter begins with an examination of the rele-
vant domain of action, either gains or losses. Next, each chapter looks at
the options that were considered at the time. In this part, the particular
framing of the relevant issues and questions to the president by his princi-
pal advisors will be investigated at a substantive level. In this way, it is pos-
sible to examine differences in the political emphases and goals of various
players. The third step consists of the evaluation of the speci‹c risk
propensity of the action taken, risk seeking or risk averse. The actual deci-
sion is then examined and a comparison is made between the predictions
of the theory and the actual decisions reached. The last part brie›y
describes the outcome of each particular event. The crucial aspect of these
analyses lies in the relationship between domain and risk, and not in the
success or failure of the actual decision or policy. Thus, the decision-mak-
ing process is not judged by the success or failure of the outcome.
      The claim is not that prospect theory explains everything. Rather, the
purpose of the case studies is to document that domain and framing can
have a profound and predictable, though often subtle, effect on the sub-
stance and content of decision making under conditions of risk. Through
a parallel demonstration of theory, it is possible to show that prospect the-
ory can illuminate a variety of important cases in postwar American for-
eign policy and thus offers useful insight into risk propensity in interna-
tional politics.
      Prospect theory can help explain the choice of an option that does not
in fact promote the greatest expected value. Prospect theory helps explain
how choice decisions are evaluated when the options available do not dif-
fer signi‹cantly in their expected value or where optimal choice is not evi-
dent. Prospect theory helps explain why nonoptimal choices are often
made, especially in the case of loss aversion. Finally, prospect theory
addresses those cases where decisions require choices among options that
promote con›icting values. By examining how these options are compared
and evaluated in terms of gains and losses in each issue area and not only
in terms of absolute outcome, it becomes possible to shed new light on crit-
ical but previously unrecognized aspects of important decisions.
      Prospect theory offers a wealth of knowledge that can be fruitfully
applied to problems in the international environment. The following chap-
ters will apply prospect theory to events in the international arena that
explicitly involve judgment under uncertainty and decision making under
risk. In this way, it is hoped that prospect theory will provide a more theo-
retically sophisticated understanding of the nature of risk propensity.

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