Identical outcomes flip choices when reframed as losses

Correct: A — Lives saved (a gain frame)

Tversky and Kahneman (1981) presented participants with a hypothetical disease threatening 600 people and offered statistically equivalent programs framed either positively (Program A: 200 people will be saved) or negatively (Program A': 400 people will die). Most people chose the certain option in the gain frame and the risky option in the loss frame, even though the underlying outcomes were identical. The asymmetry follows directly from prospect theory's S-shaped value function: people are risk-averse for gains and risk-seeking for losses. The framing effect demonstrates that human choice is not a pure function of outcomes but of the way outcomes are described.