The “Upper Limit Framing” Effect: Upper Limit Framing of a Cost Estimate Influences Consumption Choices

Consumers often make consumption choices on the basis of estimates, rather than actual temporal or monetary costs. Frequently, marketers interchangeably use “less than” vs. “not more than” frame to present consumers with an estimated upper limit of the underlying cost. For example, an Uber driver may tell you that he will arrive in “less than 20 minutes,” or “not more than 20 minutes.” Although these frames are equivalent and interchangeably used, we show that these frames result in differential consumption choices – what we term the upper limit framing effect. We show that less than (vs. not more than) framing of the upper limit of a temporal or monetary cost estimate can result in different consumer expectations regarding the underlying cost involved, and systematically influence subsequent consumption choices. We draw our hypotheses from research on negation theory. Negation theory literature suggests that verbal inferences that involve negations are more effortful to process than equivalent affirmations (Dale and Duran, 2011; Nordemeyer and Frank, 2014; Khemlani, Orenes, and Johnson-Laird, 2012; 2014), although under certain circumstances they can be equally fluent to process (Johnson-Laird, 1970; Clark, 1974). In turn, the less fluent processing associated with negations leads individuals to neglect the negation. For example, someone deemed “innocent” will appear more free of guilt than someone deemed “not guilty.” Indeed, for cost estimates involving small amounts, our findings are consistent with this model: framing the upper limit as “less than” leads to contracted cost perceptions (vs. “not more than” framing).