The “Asian Disease Problem”

A Book About How Human Mind Works Along With All the Baggages It Brings

I found a curiously named problem called “Asian Disease Problem” in Daniel Kahneman’s best selling book “Thinking, Fast and Slow”. It’s not just the somewhat prophetic name that is interesting, the problem itself is also fascinating.

The problem is trying to illustrate how given two proposals, the way the proposals are framed can influence which proposals will get the most support.

Here is the problem along with the first way of how the solution is framed (let’s call it Frame 1):

You could be mistaken to think that this was written in 2020

Which program will you support? If you are like most people, then you will choose program A. We might think that the most ethical thing to do is to choose program that was guaranteed to save lives.

Now the program is framed differently, let’s call this Frame 2:

The Second Version of the Proposal

Now which program will you support? Based on the book, more people now support program B, because if there is a slight chance that we can avoid any loss of lives, then we should choose that option over the option that is guaranteed to end some lives.

However, if you look more carefully, consequences of each program are actually the same in Frame 1 and Frame 2! I.e. given 600 people, saying “200 people will be saved” means that the other 400 people will die.

So what causes the difference? The theory is:

• When the outcome is positive (Frame 1): people tend to be risk averse, they will choose the option that is more certain. People prefer program A because 200 people will certainly be saved, while in program B, there is ~66% chance that no one will be saved.
• When the outcome is negative (Frame 2): people tend to be risk seeking, they will choose the option that is less certain but promise greater reward. In program B, there is ~33% chance that 0 people died, while in program A, 400 people will certainly die, so people don’t choose this.

It is a bit scary to think that human minds are so easily persuaded by something that looks so innocuous. How many bad decisions are made because of bad framing? And this is just one example of the biases that human minds can have. The book contains a lot more examples of the biases that we are often afflicted. I highly recommend this book, especially for people who are in the position to make decisions that can affect a lot of people.