Incompatible messages implied from positive and negative frames regarding trust and choice decisions

Following common wisdom, if one trusts agent A more than B, then one should prefer to conduct transactions with the former rather than with the latter agent. Several experiments are presented that are incompatible with this conjecture. For example, when faced with a choice between two butchers, whose ground beef is advertised as containing 25% fat (negative frame) or 75% lean (positive frame), respectively (Levin, 1987; Levin and Gaeth, 1988), most people have more trust in the former yet most indicate they would buy their meat from the latter butcher. This phenomenon, in which negative framing weighs more in trust assessments, and positive framing weighs more in choice, is labeled trust – choice incompatibility. The robustness of the phenomenon is further demonstrated in several experiments, and possible explanations for its occurrence are discussed.