Framing is the most powerful concept in persuasion. When we look at the big picture we see that everything can be thought of as a frame. By using political or religious examples (and any other taboo/controversial thing I can come up with), I am in no way endorsing one side or the other-though of course I do have personal opinions-rather, I’m showing that we all have blind spots. Find a belief that you believe fervently, feverishly, fanatically, even, and I’m going to suggest that you may be blind to the opposite side of the issue.
Take pro life/pro choice. The other side, whichever side you’re on, is wrong. No budging. Pro choice/anti life versus pro life/anti choice. There is no possible way to accept the other side’s point of view because it is not an option. There are some that don’t even believe it’s a frame, it’s just murder. There are others who believe it’s not a frame, it’s just an elimination of a woman’s choice to have freedom over her body. There’s no gray area for either camp.
I’m absolutely not interested in changing these deep held beliefs, but I want us all to look at how they are ultimately, frames.
Reframing is telling the truth as we see it. Reframing requires repetition. We have deeply carved neuro pathways that tell us what to think of a situation or idea or group of people or corporation.
Think of ‘the’ major coffee chain. Without naming names, you know the one I’m talking about. They’re taking over the world. They’re putting little independent mom and pop cafs out of business. They’re overpriced. They’re overrated. AND They’re fair to workers even providing health care to part time employees. They support fair trade sustainable coffee growers in third world countries. They’ve got a delicious organic iced decaf mocha.
Maybe you believe a combination of the above. Maybe none of it really matters to you at all. But these are all beliefs and therefore frames.
How about a group of people? Let’s use the example of health care providers. They’re miracle workers. They’re caring and nurturing. They’re overpaid. They’re shills for the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
You may believe all of these or none of these. But surely you can see that each example is a frame. You have probably had good and bad experiences with doctors that color how you look at this profession. If you were very young and had an illness that required hospitalization and your first memories were of being stuck with needles by doctors, I’d say that’s a pretty big imprint and you may have developed a very deep fear of hospitals. It may have saved your life, but you’d still have that frame of health care providers. And only through repetitious positive experience, would you have a change.
It is my hope that in repeating the importance of frames, some of you may begin to view the whole world as a series of frames.
