The Master Communicator's Handbook

by Teresa Erickson

  Understanding how framing impacts the amygdala is vital to communications, especially in the face of potential conflicts involving different frames of reference.

  Framing in Communications

  Fit your facts to your audience’s frames

  If you speak from your own frame of reference and your audience does not share it, they will not be able to fit your facts into their frames. It will be as if they never heard you – or perhaps interpret what you are saying or doing as something quite different from what you meant.

  Tim first became aware of this principle while living in Ladakh in northern India. A German NGO was doing community development work in this remote Himalayan kingdom. One day one of the NGO workers discovered a thin, hard slab of grey material being used by one of the local women as a pan to bake her bread. He was surprised by this, as Ladakhis normally bake their bread on a large hot stone in the oven. The German asked the Ladakhi woman where she got the slab, and she said it was in a pile of unused construction materials left behind from an Indian government building. The slab was much better than a rock, she said, not only because it was so smooth, but also because it didn’t get hot when she put it in the oven. Everyone in her village was using them now, the woman enthused. The NGO worker blanched as he realized these were slabs of asbestos.

  The NGO got to work on a campaign to explain the medical science of asbestos and the long-term incidence of lung disease it causes. The Ladakhis just laughed. No one was getting sick, they said. Silly foreigners. Scientific facts were just bouncing off the brains of these Himalayan villagers who had no scientific frame of reference. Eventually, the leaders of the NGO asked a senior monk in the area for help. He’d gone to university and immediately grasped the problem. So the monastery issued a decree forbidding the use of these slabs because they contained evil spirits. The community at once threw away the dangerous items. Interestingly, as Tim recalls the story, some of the German workers were quite irritated at this pronouncement. They didn’t like the monastery’s inaccurate explanation – although it ultimately proved to be an effective way of describing the dangers of asbestos within a spiritual, Ladakhi frame of reference.

  Three-step framing

  We have boiled down how to use framing in communications into three simple steps:

  1. Learn your target audience’s frames. Study your audience. Try to see the world through their eyes. What do they value? How do they make sense of the universe? In the example above, if you were trying to persuade Ladakhis not to use asbestos tiles to cook on, you might start by finding out what sort of things fit within the frame of “dangerous, keep away!” for them.

  2. Activate the right frame. Remember, people have many frames. Think of them as like many pairs of polarized sunglasses a person can wear. You have to use cueing (Chapter 14) to direct your audience’s attention to the specific frame you want them to pay attention to. This is easier than it sounds in the abstract. If you want to activate someone’s frame about swimming, you just start talking about swimming. Use examples, facts, stories and ideas that your audience is familiar with and that fit inside their “swimming” frame. For example, “You remember the last time we went swimming at the beach?” The right neurons will start firing in their brain, activating the frame.

  Continuing with the Ladakhi example, you might remind your Himalayan audience of something they already know about things that are dangerous to one’s health but that you can’t see. It’s also important to note that in the story of Ladakh, the fact that the authority who gave the warning was a lama is also significant.

  3. Add your new information/ideas. Explain how your new information connects with what your listeners already know. Do it with language and metaphors congruent with the audience’s frame, as the lama in our story did by invoking the “evil spirits.”

  Here are two examples of framing in communications:

  Example: Scottish Independence Referendum

  This was a battle between two separate frames. The Scottish National Party, in power in Scotland, got to compose the question: “Should Scotland be an independent country?” Assuming the people of Scotland have a positive value around independence, framing the question as a “Yes” for them and a “No” for those against independence was a great strategy. It forced the “unionists” to adopt a negative tactic of explaining why Scotland would fail if it tried to become independent. Even though there were plenty of risky economic fears about independence, the “No” side seemed to be losing support as the referendum neared because of the perceived “negativity” of their campaign.

  Interestingly, the “No” campaign, led by many English politicians, had adopted the slogan “Better Together.” This was an attempt to frame the debate in such a way that highlighted the positives for Scotland of staying inside a “united” kingdom. But by June, just 2 months before the election, the “No” side abandoned this slogan, because it wasn’t working. The polls were reporting that people in Scotland found the slogan “meaningless.” In other words, while English people thought Scots would value being in a united Britain, this was not really a dominant value for many Scots. The “No” side had failed step 1, and so it had failed step 2, and hence their slogan was not resonating with the people they sought to reach.

  The new slogan the “No” side chose was, surprisingly, “No Thanks.” Adding that one moderating word resonated with the Scottish people. According to media reports, many Scots were sick of the enmity the campaign had created, souring friendships and family relationships. That tone of declining with polite respect resonated well with them. It gave “No” voters a way to take a stand on the issue that was not absolutist and that did not deny the legitimacy of others to hold a different point of view. While there’s no doubt that practical economic considerations played a big part in the decision, this switch to a different framing by the “No” campaign helped stall the momentum of the other side, which may have made a crucial difference in Scotland’s ultimate decision to reject independence.

  Example: Converting Climate Change Skeptics

  A team lead by a Yale psychology professor, Daniel Kahan, conducted an interesting study recently on Climate Change skeptics. They wanted to study the tendency of individuals to select and credit information based on how well it supported their values. In other words they were going to study the effects of framing. The team described the values of typical Climate Change skeptics like this: “Citizens who prize individual self-sufficiency tend to dismiss claims of environmental risk because accepting these claims would license restrictions on free markets…”

  The researchers divided their subjects into three groups. First, they asked each group to read a news report. Group #1 read an unrelated news report about a city council meeting on traffic signals (this was the neutral “control” group). Group #2 read a news report about leading scientists calling for regulations on carbon dioxide emissions. Group #3 read a news report about leading scientists calling for more research into geoengineering. (Geoengineering refers to large-scale technological schemes to deflect excess sunlight or otherwise artificially cool the planet.) What is important is that none of the three news reports addressed the facts about the reality of Climate Change.

  In the next phase of the experiment, researchers asked all three groups to evaluate a different study on facts about Climate Change. The interesting result was that subjects in Group #2 – who first read the news report calling for greater regulation of emissions – evaluated the study on the facts of Climate Change as less reliable than the group that read the neutral news report about traffic issues. In other words, when regulation was proposed as the solution to Climate Change, skeptics were less inclined to believe facts about climate science. Regulation – something that conflicted with their values – seemed to harden their skepticism to the facts.

  However, subjects in Group #3 – who read the report on geoengineering – evaluated the study on the facts of Climate Change as more reliable. Why? Geoengineering is about managing e
nvironmental risks through human ingenuity. So the researchers concluded that as a potential solution to Climate Change, geoengineering “powerfully resonates with persons who have individualistic and hierarchical outlooks.” In other words, when the solutions to Climate Change seemed to better fit the skeptic’s values, he or she was more likely to evaluate the science itself as valid!8

  The insight gained from this study is not just about Climate Change skeptics. It’s about the power of our frames to influence how we perceive the facts. This is the main message of this chapter: If you want to convince someone, you must first fit your facts to their frames.

  Chapter 13

  Reframing

  Arguing with someone whose frame of reference is different from yours can cause more harm than good. When their amygdala kicks in, your opponents are likely to stop reasoning and start defending their positions as if they are being personally attacked. New research (as in the Yale research study in the previous chapter) even suggests that after an argument, people often come away even more committed to their original positions. Why? Because their frames have been reinforced by a strong emotional defense. Reframing offers a different way to deal with disagreement caused by conflicting frames. It’s the key to helping people change their minds.

  Our frames of reference give us only a partial view of reality. As a result there are times when we frame issues in ways that may be widely perceived by others as faulty – even damaging and destructive. It is important to respect other people’s different frames of reference, because they are a part of who they are, and these frames are what make up their reality. But sometimes it’s also important to know how to reframe beliefs when others’ views may be factually wrong or harmful.

  For example: someone who believes vaccinating his or her child might cause autism. In reality, there is no clinical evidence for this, while there is a massive amount of evidence that unvaccinated children are at risk of contracting deadly diseases. Or what about someone who believes one race, gender or religion is inferior to another, and that this justifies mistreatment and prejudice? We are also reminded of elected officials who commit to a position, and then refuse to consider new evidence for fear of appearing weak. One such policymaker was quoted in the media saying, “Economists make all kinds of predictions…I don’t listen to them.” This is a clear indication that such a person is locked into a particular frame of reference and unwilling to hear any new information.

  You may choose to help someone reframe:

  • if your target audience rejects or ignores important information.

  • if your target audience seems locked into a position that is damaging to them (or others).

  • if your target audience makes choices that to you seem wrong or stupid.

  • if your target audience perceives you or your group in a negative light.

  Techniques for Reframing

  Here are four steps necessary for reframing:

  1. Create rapport; imagine how the other person sees the world from inside their frames of reference. Without trust, the other person is not likely to be open to a reframing conversation. The best way to build trust is to be honestly curious about his or her current frame of reference. This kind of conversation has to occur without an agenda to “change them.” If you can honestly set that aside and just be interested in why this other person thinks the way they do, then they are more likely to open up. If you listen openly and without the judgment of your own frames, they may surprise you. For example, you might come to better appreciate why they hold the frames they do.

  Even if step 1 is all you accomplish, you can shift the perspective of the other person who might hold judgments about “people like you.” When we establish rapport with someone very different from us, both parties may end up reframing how they view a whole class of people.

  2. Ask questions to help the other person discover the benefits of reframing (or feel the pain that will occur if there is no change). Maintaining an attitude of open curiosity, you can ask the other person about potential contradictions in their existing frames. We all have these incongruities between our frames because they were often built haphazardly as we went through life. Each experience or idea we encounter can lead to the construction of a new frame. That new frame may not always dovetail with other frames we’ve constructed. For example, your parents may have taught you that hard work is the only thing that leads to success, and so you develop a work ethic, and you have that frame inside you. However, in your first job, you may discover that the colleagues in your company who get ahead are not the hardest workers, but those who know how to network and connect with their superiors. So you create that frame about work as well. Either consciously or unconsciously you end up with incongruities and conflicts between your frames. These become a source of internal tension. For example, you might have been raised to honor Thanksgiving dinner with turkey as an important family ritual. Other experiences late in life might have led you to become an ethical vegetarian, and there you are at the feast, stuck with conflicting frames.

  So search for these conflicting frames in the other person, and see if you can get the person to open up about them. This is where rapport is important, because merely pointing out logical inconsistencies can be quite provoking and annoying.

  As an exercise, imagine you are the advisor to an absolute dictator-for-life in a poor country. You want to help the dictator reframe his attitude towards building a new palace versus providing universal public education for the same cost. As an advisor, let’s assume you have already completed step 1, and you understand the dictator well and have his trust. Think first about the kinds of questions you might ask that would nonetheless get you executed on the spot:

  “Don’t you think you are being selfish putting your own need for glory above your citizens’ necessities?”

  “Do you want to cause a revolution? What will you say when they put you on trial?”

  “Honestly, do you really need a new castle?”

  Instead, ask questions exploiting the dictator’s conflicting frames:

  “In 50 years, what do you think the people of this country will say about you? What kind of a legacy are you going to leave them with?” (One of the dictator’s frames is himself as a leader who will be revered for all time; while the conflicting frame is his belief that he deserves the most extravagant show of his power, another is the sense of himself as a benevolent “father” of his people.)

  “You tell the people to call you ‘father’ of the country. What do you think are the best ways you could show your citizens that you care about their wellbeing like a father?”

  “If all of your citizens could read and write, what would you like them to write about you in the history books? What facts would you want them to point to?”

  “Would you want them all to read about you? Do they have enough education to read well?”

  While these questions alone might not be enough to get our hypothetical autocrat to change his evil ways, the point is that the advisor can get him thinking about the tension between his desire for grandeur and his desire to be loved and be remembered well by future generations.

  3. Invite them to imagine a “what if” scenario. When someone begins to imagine a realistic hypothetical situation, it becomes possible in his or her mind. Our brains tend to hold this rule of thumb: If I can think it, then it could happen. So ask the other person to consider a situation they would consider possible. It could be one of two kinds of situations.

  It could be a situation in which they would lose something they value if they keep their present frame. For example, consider a man who doesn’t own life insurance because he believes such polices are a waste of money given the slim odds of accidental death. He might shift his frame when asked to imagine exactly what would happen financially to his spouse and children in the event of his sudden death – their home foreclosed, the family thrown out on the street.

  The other situation is one in which the person would gain something th
ey value if they dropped their current frame. For example, think of the billionaires who were persuaded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to devote large parts of their fortunes to philanthropy. The social value that they gained became quite appealing against a financial loss they would barely feel. To be honest, most people are more easily motivated to change by aversion to loss, rather than attraction to gain. But we think positive motivation works well in the long term, because it can lead to creative and energetic action, rather than a contraction based on fear.

  4. Wait for confusion. This might sound strange, but one of the strongest indicators that someone has begun the reframing process is that they become confused. Their old mental structure no longer makes sense. Life is no longer secure and predictable. They are in a state of not knowing. It’s often an uncomfortable place for people, and so they usually respond by quickly trying to find another frame that makes better sense. As they are reframing, you might find them firing off a string of questions, often fact-based questions. In the examples above, the dictator might start asking about how other great figures of history created their legacies, or the cost of building new schools.

  It’s a delicate moment in the mind of the one who is reframing. If you are helping someone through this process, now is the time to step back and not talk too much. Answer their questions succinctly, just providing the information they ask for.

  5. Let go of winning. If it looks as if the other person is in the midst of reframing, and the new frame they are adopting is the one you have been explaining to them, it can be very hard not to feel that you’ve won a victory. You have to resist this thought with all your might. If you seem triumphant, that can have a negative impact on the other person. They might feel your win equals their loss. You were somehow more powerful than them: your frame was better. All these thoughts and feelings can create resistance to their embracing the new frame.