That Neuroscience Guy - The Neuroscience of Framing

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

In today's episode of That Neuroscience Guy, we discuss how framing information in different ways affects your brain. 

Hi, my name is Olaf Kyrgylson, and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to the podcast. Let me start with a simple scenario. You're sitting in a doctor's office. He tells you that there is a treatment available. He says it has a 90% success rate. Most people hear that and feel reassured.

You might even feel optimistic. But now imagine the same doctor. and he says that the treatment has a 10% failure rate. Same treatment, same numbers. But the feeling changes immediately. There's hesitation, doubt, maybe even fear. So what changed? Not the facts.

The facts remain the same. But the way the facts were presented changed. And yet that small shift, it's often enough to change the decision entirely. So on today's podcast, we're talking about framing effects and why your brain reacts so strongly to them. At its core, a framing effect is simple. The way information is presented changes the decision we make, even when the underlying information is identical. This isn't a rare quirk. It's a fundamental feature of how the brain works. We like to think we make decisions based on

logic, probabilities, and objective facts. We've talked about this, expected value. But in reality, our brains are constantly interpreting information through context. And framing is one of the most powerful forms of context. A gain frame like 90% success pushes us towards action. A loss frame like 10% failure activates caution. Same reality. different psychological experience.

So what's going on in the brain? Well, there's two key systems that are doing a lot of work. First is our old friend, the amygdala. And you know we've talked about the amygdala a lot, but I guess you've come to realize that the amygdala plays a pretty crucial role in a lot of different cognitive processes. So what have we talked about in the past? amygdala is heavily involved in processing emotional significance,

especially when something might be risky or threatening. I've talked about the face research, which is really famous. If you show people happy faces versus sad faces versus neutral faces, you get an emotional response to the happy faces and the sad faces, interestingly enough, but not to the neutral faces. We've talked about how the amygdala is more activated when you're, tired or when you're depressed. That's the amygdala. So now, if you think about framing effects, when information is framed as a loss, the amygdala tends to respond more strongly. That's because

losses are evolutionary speaking more dangerous than missed gains. Think about what that means. If you lose from an evolutionary perspective, it could mean that you're dead. All right. Survivor was tough. It's tough now, but it was even tougher a long time ago. Whereas gains were things to be desired, and the amygdala responds, but it's those losses that our brain is afraid of. The second part of the brain that's involved in framing effects is the ventral medial prefrontal cortex. So up at the front of the brain, we've talked about this area before too. The ventral medial prefrontal cortex or VMPFC is an area that integrates emotional and cognitive information to help assign value to choices. Remember choice value? We've talked about it a lot. It's a key part of

decision making, the value we put on something. And if you remember choice value, it doesn't have to be tied to money, right? It could be, you know, your favorite sweater might not be the most expensive sweater you own. So what is the VMPFC doing? It's integrating the emotional and cognitive information to come up with the actual value. Basically, it's asking a question, how good is this option for me? Is this something I want? But here's the key.

This is the part where this comes together. The VMPFC doesn't operate in isolation. It's taking that input from systems like the amygdala. So when the situation is framed negatively, the emotional signal changes, and that changes how value is computed. The results, a different decision. So think about what I'm just saying there, okay? If you think about that doctor's office situation, if we didn't have the amygdala, the value for the 90% success rate, or the value for the 10% failure rate, they should be the same. But the amygdala is adding extra bias or extra processing to the 10% because it's a negative.

It's framed as a loss. And that's why we respond the way we do. And that's why framing effects works. So now you might ask, why would the brain be built this way? Why not be spock? Right? Why not be perfectly rational? Why not just evaluate things objectively?

Well, the answer is simple. its efficiency. The brain is constantly making decisions under uncertainty. So the brain doesn't have the time to compute everything from first principles, right? We've talked about value-based decision-making quite a bit, but the reality is it only applies in some situations. A lot of the time, your brain has to basically work on automatic mode. Otherwise, it would be too slow. So as a result, we end up using heuristics. We've talked about heuristics, mental shortcuts. And one of those shortcuts is pretty straightforward.

It comes from that evolutionary background I talked about. It's pay more attention to potential losses than gains. And not just from an evolutionary perspective, but in the real world, losses often carry greater consequences. So like I said, if our ancestors ignored potential losses, they didn't stick around very long, in the modern world, you might be bankrupt, you might lose your job, you might lose an opportunity. So the brain has evolved to be lost sensitive. And framing taps directly into that system. It's nudging your brain. It's nudging it towards either approach behavior,

which is when something is framed as a gain, or avoidance behavior, which is when something is framed as a loss. Now, let's pull that out into the real world. Framing effects are everywhere once you start looking around. Food labels, 95% fat-free versus 5% fat. Would anyone buy anything if it was labeled 5% fat? It's the exact same product, but there's a different perception. Marketing. Save $20 versus avoid losing $20. The second one pushes you, right? It feels more urgent. News headlines. Unemployment drops to 5% versus 5% of people still unemployed. Just think about how you're processing that. If you say unemployment drops to 5% you feel relieved. The world's getting better. But if I say 5% of people are still unemployed, it's the same statistic. But it's a completely different emotional. response. Even yourself, when you think about things and decisions you're going to make on a daily basis, you could frame a decision as, you know, what could I gain or what could go wrong?

I know I used to be guilty of this quite a bit, right? As opposed to thinking about what I could gain by doing something, I'd be thinking about what could go wrong. How could it fall apart on me? and that framing alone can shift what you choose to do. So how can this help you in the real life? You don't eliminate framing effects. You can't. They're everywhere. But you need to be aware of them.

So when you hear a statistic or a reported number like that, ask yourself, how else could this be framed? And if you're trying to make a decision, try flipping the frame. If something's presented as a gain, consider the loss that's there. And if it's presented as a loss, consider the gain. This simple trick, right? This little thing you can do can help you get closer to the underlying reality. And that's not a bad thing to do.

So if you're in the doctor's office and they tell you that a treatment has a 10% failure rate, don't forget to remember it could have a 90% chance of, working. Framing effects remind us of something important. We don't just respond to the world as it is. We respond to the way it's presented to us. And sometimes the smallest change in wording can lead to a completely different decision. So that's what I've got to say about framing effects. I really hope you found that interesting. If you haven't found it yet, I've actually started a second podcast. It's called 60 seconds of neuroscience. It started honestly with something I put on LinkedIn. I'd started doing simple graphics and each graphic is something about neuroscience. I did one on Monday

about framing effects. And I decided why don't make it a podcast? So it's on Spotify. It's on Apple Podcasts. 60 seconds of neuroscience. And that's what it is. It's 60 seconds. There's no intro music. It's just me going at it for 60 seconds. And that's what it is. So if you just want to add something to your life one minute at a time, I'm going to be pushing stuff every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. If you don't want to add me on LinkedIn, I don't use it that often, but we're going to be posting all of the 60 seconds of neuroscience on our Instagram account. So you can check it out there. So if you haven't already, follow us on Instagram. And don't forget that neuroscience guy at gmail.com at that neuroscience guy on X and threads and

on Instagram and send us ideas. We really want to know what you want to know about the neuroscience of daily life. The website, that neuroscience guy.com, Etsy, we're getting some new merch ideas out and Patreon. For those of you supporting us, thank you so much.

All the money goes to graduate students in the Kyrgyzolson Lab and it helps them become neuroscientists. And last but not least, the podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And if you haven't already, please subscribe. My name is Olive Krigolson, and I'm that neuroscience guy. I'll see you soon for another full episode of the podcast.