Framing is a thinking process that people use for defining the situation and deciding how to deal with them. Reframing is a psychological method that includes identifying situations, experiences, and emotions and how all of this can be changed.
With reframing, we can change the context and we can create content that influences choices and even decisions. Hereby, we have given the answer to the question in our title. But how can we do this?
The framing in your message is about what you choose to say and how you choose to say it. It also contains what you choose not to say. Framing a message provides focus. Just like demonstrating a picture in a red frame instead of a black one attracts our attention, and it changes the way we see the picture. In short, by changing the scenario, you change how you absorb, what you do, and how your stakeholders perceive you.
The impact of reframing on decisions is striking in a survey study by Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman gives participants two options for dealing with an epidemic that is expected to kill 600 people.
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In option A, 200 people will be saved.
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In option B, there is a one-third probability that all 600 people will be saved and a two-thirds probability that no one will be saved.
Although it wasn't easy to decide between these two options, 72% of the participants chose option A and 28% of them chose option B.
The subject of Kahneman's next question was the same. But this time the options were reframed.
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Option C will result in 400 deaths.
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In option D, there is a one-third probability that no one will die, and a two-thirds probability that everyone will die.
What is striking here is even if the outcomes of all options are logically equivalent, people respond differently to positive (life) and negative (death) statements.
Context is essential for decision-makers. Whether a half-full or half-empty, glass fulness is determined by the fullness of the other glass next to it. Next to a full glass, our glass is half empty; next to an empty glass, our glass is half full. This is also called the contrast effect.
When we produce our content, we can reproduce context by reframing, and this way we can influence decisions on choices.
Author:
FOUNDER and CEO