Frames |
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Created: 2024-01-15
Frames are cognitive shortcuts that people use to help make sense of complex information. Frames help us to interpret the world around us and represent that world to others. They help us organize complex phenomena into coherent, understandable categories. When we label a phenomenon, we give meaning to some aspects of what is observed, while discounting other aspects because they appear irrelevant or counter-intuitive. Thus, frames provide meaning through selective simplification, by filtering people's perceptions and providing them with a field of vision for a problem
- Identity frames: Disputants view themselves as having particular identities in the context of specific conflict situations.[20] These identities spring from the individuals' self-conception and group affiliations. One might frame oneself as a Hutu or a Tutsi, a Muslim or a Christian, a man or a woman, or a Republican or Democrat. The more central the challenge to one's sense of self, the more oppositional one is likely to act. Typical responses to threats to identity include ignoring information and perspectives that threaten the core identity, reinforcing affiliations with like-minded individuals and groups, and negatively characterizing outsiders.
- Characterization frames: Disputants view others in the conflict as having particular characteristics. Closely related to stereotyping, characterization frames may be either positive or negative. Parties to intractable conflicts often construct characterization frames for others that significantly differ from how the other parties view themselves. Such characterizations often undermine the others' legitimacy, cast doubt on their motivations, or exploit their sensitivity. For example, many Americans characterize Al Queda as "terrorists," yet they most certainly do not see themselves that way. Rather, they see themselves as freedom-fighters, or jihadi warriors fighting for the protection of Islam. Characterization frames are also often linked to identity frames, serving to strengthen one's own identity while justifying your actions toward the other (e.g., for me to be a liberator, my opponent must be an oppressor).
- Power frames: Because intractable conflicts are often imbedded in struggles to alter existing institutions or decision-making procedures, disputants' conceptions of power and social control play a significant role in conflict dynamics. Power frames help the disputant determine not only which forms of power are legitimate (e.g., governmental, legal, civil disobedience) but also the forms of power that are likely to advance one's own position (e.g., authority, resources, expertise, coalition-building, threat, voice). For instance, some people may see money as the best way to "buy influence," while other people might rely more on technical expertise or personal charisma to sway people's views..
- Conflict management or process frames: Conflict over how best to manage or resolve differences is central to many intractable disputes. Depending on disputants' identity, characterization of other disputants, perceived power, and perception of the available options, conflict frames may impel parties to seek very different remedies in response to common problems. These remedies may range from actions as disparate as violence, civil disobedience, litigation, and negotiation. Because of the wide complexity of possible actions and the uncertainty of their consequences, groups with shared interests and values may draw significantly different conclusions as to the best course of action within a particular dispute..One side, for instance, may be willing to sit down with a mediator and negotiate, while the other, thinking that it has the upper hand, may refuse negotiation, preferring litigation or violent action.
- Risk and information frames: Intractable disputes often involve expectations about future events, in which the events are risky and the likelihood of the events occurring is uncertain.[21] In such conditions, disputants often construct risk and information frames that yield highly variable assessments about the level and extent of a particular risk. Additionally, these frames indicate to the disputant which sources of information are reliable and which are not. Risk and information frames depend not just on the disputant's interests, but also on the disputant's training, expertise, level of exposure to the risk, familiarity with the risk, potential for catastrophic impacts associated with the risk, and degree to which the risk is dreaded. People who are used to working and traveling in war-torn areas, for example, have a far different assessment of the risks of such activities than people who don't do that (who thus are more likely to see the risk of doing so to be unacceptably high). Likewise, engineers who understand the technical aspects of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) are likely to access the risks of that process differently than "ordinary" people who live near the wells who have read popular media stories about the dangers of fracking--but also differently from the people working on the wells who simply want a job, and are much less worried about the impacts of their work than on the money it puts in their pockets.
- Loss versus gain frames: In intractable disputes, it is common for most parties to the conflict to focus on threats of potential loss rather than on opportunities for gains. People tend to react differently to a proposed action when its expected consequences are framed in terms of losses as opposed to gains, where preventing a perceived loss is often more salient and more highly valued than capturing a commensurate gain.[22] Going back to the fracking example mentioned above, psychology tells us that most people are more likely to focus on the dangers of fracking (the potential loss of safe drinking water, clean habitat, and quiet) to be more significant than the gains that can be obtained from fracking--reduced reliance on foreign oil, and improved economy, and more jobs.
Lakoff
These are pretty good notes but I need to study them some more.