Summary: A frame in social theory consists of a schema of interpretation — that is, a collection of anecdotes and stereotypes—that individuals rely on to understand and respond to events. [page needed] In simpler terms, people have, through their lifetimes, built series of mental emotional filters. They use these filters to make sense of the world. The choices they then make are influenced by their frame or emotional filters.

In psychology, framing is influenced by the background of a context choice and the way in which the question is worded (see Framing effect (psychology)).

To clarify: When one seeks to explain an event, the understanding often depends on the frame referred to. If a friend rapidly closes and opens an eye, we will respond very differently depending on whether we attribute this to a purely “physical” frame (s/he blinked) or to a social frame (s/he winked).

Though the former might result from a speck of dust (resulting in an involuntary and not particularly meaningful reaction), the latter would imply a voluntary and meaningful action (to convey humor to an accomplice, for example). Observers will read events seen as purely physical or within a frame of “nature” differently than those seen as occurring with social frames. But we do not look at an event and then “apply” a frame to it. Rather, individuals constantly project into the world around them the interpretive frames that allow them to make sense of it; we only shift frames (or realize that we have habitually applied a frame) when incongruity calls for a frame-shift. In other words, we only become aware of the frames that we always already use when something forces us to replace one frame with another.

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The framing effect and risky decisions: Examining cognitive functions with fMRI

The ‘‘framing effect’’ is observed when the description of options in terms of gains (positive frame) rather than losses (negative frame) elicits systematically different choices. Few theories explain the framing effect by using cognitive information-processing principles. In this paper we present an explanatory theory based on the cost–benefit tradeoffs described in contingent behavior. This theory proposes that individuals examining various alternatives try to determine how to make a good decision while expending minimal cognitive effort. For this study, we used brain activation functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to evaluate individuals that we asked to choose between one certain alternative and one risky alternative in response to problems framed as gains or losses.

Our results indicate that the cognitive effort required to select a sure gain was considerably lower than the cognitive effort required to choose a risky gain. Conversely,the cognitive effort expended in choosing a sure loss was equal to the cognitive effort expended in choosing a risky loss. fMRI revealed that the cognitive functions used by the decision makers in this study were localized in the prefrontal and parietal cortices of the brain,a finding that suggests the involvement of working memory and imagery in the selection process.

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Optional: Framing Affect Influences Decisions

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