Techniques · Framing and omission

Frame control

Choosing the context in which a fact is presented, gain or loss, cost or investment, problem or opportunity, so that the same fact leads the audience to a different conclusion.

Family Framing and omission First documented 1981 Exploits Framing effect, Loss aversion Related fallacy Framing
How it works

The same number persuades differently depending on the sentence around it. Beef that is "75% lean" sells better than beef that is "25% fat"; a treatment with a "90% survival rate" is chosen more often than one with a "10% mortality rate." Kahneman and Tversky measured the effect in 1981 with a hypothetical disease and found that doctors and laypeople alike reversed their choice when the identical options were described as lives saved rather than lives lost. The device is the deliberate choice of the description.

Frames are not lies, and every statement has one; the device is selecting the frame that moves the audience and presenting it as the only natural way to describe the thing. George Lakoff's work on political language showed how a phrase like "tax relief" frames taxation as an affliction before any argument about it begins. Exploits Framing Effect and Loss Aversion.

Historical examples

1981 · psychology

Tversky and Kahneman's "Asian disease" problem asked participants to choose between two programs against an outbreak expected to kill 600 people. When the programs were described in lives saved, most chose the certain option; when the same programs were described in lives lost, most chose the gamble. The options were identical. The paper named the framing effect and won its author a Nobel prize.

Tversky, Amos, and Daniel Kahneman. "The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice." Science 211, no. 4481 (1981): 453–458. Source

2000s · political language

Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant argued that "tax relief," a phrase pressed into general use in the early 2000s, frames taxes as an affliction and anyone opposing cuts as opposing relief, so that the argument is lost by the side that accepts the phrase. His prescription, refuse the frame and supply your own, is the counter-move to the device.

Lakoff, George. Don't Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. White River Junction: Chelsea Green, 2004.

In advertising and commerce

1988 · consumer research

Levin and Gaeth gave consumers ground beef labeled either "75% lean" or "25% fat" and found that the "lean" label produced better ratings of taste and quality, before and, to a lesser degree, after tasting. The study is the standard demonstration of framing in product labeling, and the "lean" convention it describes is universal on the shelf.

Levin, Irwin P., and Gary J. Gaeth. "How Consumers Are Affected by the Framing of Attribute Information Before and After Consuming the Product." Journal of Consumer Research 15, no. 3 (1988): 374–378. Source

Classroom prompt

Find a number in an advertisement or a speech. Restate it the opposite way (a loss instead of a gain, a percentage instead of a count). Does it persuade the same way?

In the wild

Short examples of the technique at work, each with what to notice. The same examples are questions in the quiz, where the answer is not given away.

1
"Nine in ten patients survive the procedure." The rival leaflet says "one in ten patients dies."

What to notice. The same fact, framed as gain in one leaflet and loss in the other; the choice of frame is the persuasion.

2
"How much of our children's future are we willing to sacrifice to balance the budget?"

What to notice. The question's frame concedes the point; any answer accepts that budgeting is sacrifice of children.

3
"This is not a cost. It's an investment in the community." The figure is unchanged.

What to notice. The number is reframed from loss to gain; the reframing is offered as the argument.

Sources

  1. Tversky, Amos, and Daniel Kahneman. "The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice." Science 211, no. 4481 (1981): 453–458. doi:10.1126/science.7455683
  2. Entman, Robert M. "Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm." Journal of Communication 43, no. 4 (1993): 51–58. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.1993.tb01304.x
  3. Levin, Irwin P., and Gary J. Gaeth. "How Consumers Are Affected by the Framing of Attribute Information." Journal of Consumer Research 15, no. 3 (1988): 374–378. doi:10.1086/209174
  4. Lakoff, George. Don't Think of an Elephant! White River Junction: Chelsea Green, 2004. ISBN 978-1931498715