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Dobelli, R. (2014). The art of thinking clearly. Harper Paperbacks.
IT’S NOT WHAT YOU SAY, BUT HOW YOU SAY IT
Framing
Consider these two statements:
‘Hey, the trashcan is full!’
‘It would be really great if you could empty the trash, honey.’
C’est le ton qui fait la musique: it’s not what you say, but how you say it. If a
message is communicated in different ways, it will also be received in different
ways. In psychologists’ jargon, this technique is called framing.
We react differently to identical situations, depending on how they are
presented. Kahneman and Tversky conducted a survey in the 1980s in which
they put forward two options for an epidemic-control strategy. The lives of 600
people were at stake, they told participants. ‘Option A saves 200 lives.’ ‘Option B
offers a 33% chance that all 600 people will survive, and a 66% chance that no
one will survive.’ Although options A and B were comparable (with 200 survivors
expected), the majority of respondents chose A – remembering the adage: a bird
in the hand is worth two in the bush. It became really interesting when the same
options were reframed. ‘Option A kills 400 people’, ‘Option B offers a 33% chance
that no one will die, and a 66% chance that all 600 will die.’ This time, only a
fraction of respondents chose A and the majority picked B. The researchers
observed a complete U-turn from almost all involved. Depending on the phrasing
– survive or die – the respondents made completely different decisions.
Another example: researchers presented a group of people with two kinds of
meat, ‘99% fat free’ and ‘1% fat’, and asked them to choose which was healthier.
Can you guess which they picked? Bingo: respondents ranked the first type of
meat as healthier, even though both were identical. Next came the choice
between ‘98% fat free’ and ‘1% fat’. Again, most respondents chose the first
option – despite its higher fat content.
Glossing is a popular type of framing. Under its rules, a tumbling share price
becomes ‘correction’. An overpaid acquisition price is branded ‘goodwill’. In
every management course, a problem magically transforms into an ‘opportunity’
or a ‘challenge’. A person who is fired is ‘reassessing his career’. A fallen soldier
– regardless of how much bad luck or stupidity led to his death – turns into a ‘war
hero’. Genocide translates to ‘ethnic cleansing’. A successful emergency landing,
for example on the Hudson River, is celebrated as a ‘triumph of aviation’.
(Shouldn’t a textbook landing on a runway count as an even bigger triumph of
aviation?)
Have you ever looked more closely at the prospectus for financial products –
for example, ETFs (exchange-traded funds)? Generally the brochure illustrates
the product’s performance in recent years, going back just far enough for the
nicest possible upward curve to emerge. This is also framing. Another example is
a simple piece of bread. Depending on how it is framed, as either the ‘symbolic’
or the ‘true’ body of Christ, it can split a religion, as happened in the sixteenth
century with the Reformation.
Framing is used to good effect in commerce, too. Consider used cars. You are
led to focus on just a few factors, whether the message is delivered through a
salesman, a sign touting certain features, or even your own criteria. For example,
if the car has low mileage and good tyres, you home in on this and overlook the
state of the engine, the brakes or the interior. Thus, the mileage and tyres become
the main selling points and frame our decision to buy. Such oversight is only
natural, though, since it is difficult to take in all possible pros and cons.
Interestingly, had other frames been used to tout the car we might have decided
very differently.
Authors are conscious framers, too. A crime novel would be rather dull if, from
page one, the murder were shown as it happened – stab by stab, as it were. Even
though we eventually discover the motives and murder weapons, the novelist’s
framing injects thrills and suspense into the story.
In conclusion: realise that whatever you communicate contains some element
of framing, and that every fact – even if you hear it from a trusted friend or read it
in a reputable newspaper – is subject to this effect, too. Even this chapter.
See also Contrast Effect (ch. 10); Fear of Regret (ch. 82); Loss Aversion (ch. 32);
Reciprocity (ch. 6); The Anchor (ch. 30); Sleeper Effect (ch. 70)