Framing: Presentation Matters
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.”
Henry Ford
Framing is a common lever of persuasion that affects your decisions dozens of times a day.
WHAT IS FRAMING? WHY DOES IT MATTER?
Framing refers to how information or choices are presented. Generally, you can present them positively or negatively.
As Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein explain in Nudge: “The idea is that choices depend, in part, on the way in which problems are stated.”
For example, imagine you want to tell someone that your product reduces joint pain in 90% of people who try it.
It doesn’t seem like a good idea to pitch your product by saying “only 10% of people still have joint pain afterwards,” does it? That makes your product sound ineffective.
It’s much better to say “90% of people experienced reduced joint pain,” since that frames your product as potent. This way is much more effective even though it describes the exact same information.
Framing applies to everything from research statistics to getting your friends to decide on what to do on a Friday night.
HOW FRAMING WORKS
By choosing how to frame information, you can control what others focus on when they make snap judgments about that info.
As you know, thanks to evolution the human brain is pretty lazy. When you’re presented with new information or a choice, your brain will latch on to the easiest understanding of that information. And you can shape that understanding by watching how you frame things.
For example, if you’re told the glass is half full, your brain will view water as abundant. But if you’re told the glass is half empty, your brain starts from a place of “empty” and will view the water as scarce.
This is because an “empty” glass is what was directly presented to your brain, so your brain defaults to an “empty’ glass as the baseline for the situation.
RISK
Sometimes, it makes sense to frame information negatively. This is particularly true when there’s a risk because, in the brains of homo sapiens, losses hurt more than gains help.
For example, in Nudge, Thaler Sunstein discuss studies on energy efficient behavior. If you want to get someone to adopt a certain energy efficient method, it’s more effective to frame the method as avoiding loss (“if you don’t, you’ll lose $350 a year”) than achieving gain (“if you do, you will save $350 a year).
By framing the cost as a risk of losing money, the behavioral change was more effective.
HOW YOU WILL LEVERAGE FRAMING
- Sales & Copywriting — Take a look at how you’re framing your product/service. Are you framing it positively?
- Risk — How could you frame your product/service as helping others avoid a risk?
- Decisions, Generally — When offering someone a choice, consider how you’re framing the information. For example, people are more likely to be in favor of a course of action that “saves 90 lives out of 100” instead of one that “risks 10 lives out of 100.”
- Pricing — If you frame a price increase as a “late fee,” people are more likely to buy early. However, if you instead frame the pricing scheme as offering an “early discount,” people are more likely to not buy early.
- Errors & Mistakes — You can “frame” yourself by viewing any errors or mistakes not as failures, but as opportunities to learn and grow.
How have you leveraged framing to persuade and influence? Where have you seen it used by others? Share your expertise in the comments.
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