Telling your story

One of the remarkable insights of cognitive science is that the brain is, by and large, a story-making organ. Being able to perceive patterns in our environment, interpret, categorise, memorise, recall, contextualise and communicate – all of these facets come together in the sense making of story and its telling.

For this reason, story telling is a very efficient way of conveying information. In the workshops I give, I ask participants to write down the story of their climate action group. The group is given a number of prompts that cue for the common features, roles and event structures of stories. These are:

What is the threat or problem?
Who are the victims?
What will be sacrificed? Lost?
Who are the villains?
Who are the heroes?
What will the heroes do to stop the threat?

The story that emerges out of this tells us the group’s reason for being, who they are, what’s at stake, who is responsible and their program for action. It becomes the basis for the messages that the group needs to convey to its community. The stump speech.

The process can also be used to elaborate around specific issues and aspects of the campaign, for example, discussing the merits of policy proposals such as the C.P.R.S.

In interview situations and casual conversations, you will often be asked, ‘so tell me about your group, what do you do?’ The narrative you’ve developed will answer this question.

I encourage you to carefully consider your answer to the ‘who are the heroes?’ question. The answer will tell your community who you are, and, the best answer, (in my view and…) in a nutshell is, to paraphrase, ‘just like you.’ That is, ‘we are parents and grandparents, teachers and tradies. We’re people from all walks of life and we’ve come together to stop the threat of global warming…’

Another suggestion is to make use of the words in the progressive value set described in the first post. Weave them into your story, for example, ‘our purpose is to protect our community from the impact of global warming, to preserve our life opportunities and call on our government to take responsibility and play its part in caring for Australia’s future.’

Tell personal stories of why you became involved in this group, this campaign. Personal stories express values and elicit empathy. For example, 'I fish in this estuary every summer with my grandchildren. I love this coast. All this will go when sea levels rise.' Take a moment to reflect on those thoughts and feelings that triggered your involvement.

Keep the language easy to understand. Try to avoid the ‘policy speak’ trap, using technical terms like ‘petawatt’, ‘parts per million’ or ‘biodiversity’. If you do need to do this, try to make sure you’ve grounded these statistics and terms in your story so people already know who you are and where you’re coming from because you’ve made clear value statements.

I welcome your comments on this post.

Carbon Polluter's Rescue Scheme

At the recent Climate Summit I attended the presentation on the proposed CPRS. At the end, discussion centred on the need to find some other words for the acronym. Here's my go at it:

CARBON POLLUTER'S RESCUE SCHEME

Here’s how we could use it in the GLOBAL WARMING is a BURNING HOME frame.

“If I walk into my kitchen and there’s a fire burning I need to put out all the fire as quickly as possible to save my home. If I just put out 5 per cent it won’t stop the fire. If I put out 15 percent, it won’t stop the fire. I need to put out as much of that fire as soon as possible if I want to save my home.

Kevin Rudd’s plan will only put out 5 per cent of the fire. Kevin Rudd is telling us that putting out only 5 per cent of the fire is enough. That’s Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Polluter’s Rescue Scheme. But it get’s worse. His Carbon Polluter’s Rescue Scheme even lets Big Polluters walk into your home and dump a load of coal on the fire. More fuel for the fire to burn. It let’s them buy pollution credits, so they can pollute more. It gives the Big Polluters public money, hundreds of millions of dollars, to just keep on polluting.

That’s Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Polluter’s Rescue Scheme: rescues big polluters, trashes planet Earth, our home.

Kevin Rudd’s C.P.R.S is C.R.A.P. It needs to be SCRAPPED.”

Frame the debate, speak your values

This text is based on a workshop I conducted at the Climate Summit, Canberra, Monday 2nd February 2009.

INTRODUCTION

When I started as an environmental campaigner I naively assumed that it was all a matter of getting facts out to people. If you tell people the facts then they will take action. My naivety quickly turned to exasperation along the lines of, “people know the facts, why aren’t they taking action?”

I thought at that point it may be useful to better understand how we think and how we are motivated to take action so that I may be able to communicate with my fellow humans more effectively.

When I did this I found that I’d fallen into a common communication trap. This is called “The Facts Will Set You Free Trap”. This trap, elaborated by the Cognitive Linguist George Lakoff in his book Thinking Points, assumes that just by informing people of facts they will change their opinion, behaviour, etc.

This trap is made possible by another trap, called the “Rationalist Trap”. The Rationalist Trap is a model of human reasoning and behaviour that comes to us from the Enlightenment and has influenced Western thought to this day. The features of this model are that human reason is:

· Conscious;
· Literal (fact-based, objective);
· Logical;
· Universal;
· Unemotional;
· Disembodied; and
· Self-interested.

As Lakoff points out, this model, while ground breaking 400 years ago, has now been proven wrong on every count. That is, human reasoning is:

1. About 98 per cent unconscious
2. Structured by metaphor, metonymy, semantic frames, prototypes and basic level categorisation.
3. Contingent on cultural influence and belief patterns.
4. Impossible without emotion. The role of emotion in reasoning is integral to the extent that they are the same process.
5. Reliant on a nervous system and is constrained by its capabilities. Further, it recruits from bodily experience to help with conceptualisation.
6. And lastly, human co-operation is one of our most powerful adaptive assets. It rests on our innate capacity for empathy and reciprocation.

So, while facts are important, they need to be structured in semantic frames that will convey them with clarity and force. To communicate effectively we need to understand that our reasoning is anything other than so-called “rational”.

ANATOMY OF FRAMES

We often hear the word “frame”. Most commonly we hear it used by journalists or speech writers. “How do we frame this?” “Why did they frame it like this?”

As I’ve alluded to, there is a lot of scholarship behind framing. This comes to us from the cognitive sciences, linguistics and neuroscience. Frames can be described as:

"... the mental structures that shape human thought. Frame analysis is about how people think, the ideas they have about the world and the interpretations they make about things happening around them. This goes much deeper than words. It goes to the core of our most basic understandings of the world."

The real significance of frames is its role in how we reason about the world and importantly how through them we construct our notions of what makes COMMON SENSE. This is of relevance to people such as ourselves who are involved with the business of communication and, in essence, the creation of a new common sense around global warming.

Let’s look at a literal frame. A picture frame. Inside a picture frame is the picture. The frame defines the picture and constrains our view to the picture. Everything inside the frame is the focus of our attention. Everything outside the frame is irrelevant. So irrelevant it really doesn’t exist.

This is how it works with frames. The content of the frame creates the focus and constrains our reasoning within its terms. Recall that about 98 per cent of our cognition is unconscious, so much of what I'm about to describe is occuring "under the radar" of consciousness.

Frames can be activated by a word or phrase. For example, the word “Bottle” activates a frame. In this case the frame includes our perception of the object or thing, its features and their qualities. For example, a bottle is a container, whose features include an inside, an outside, a boundary, in this case a cylinder, with an opening.

The bottle frame also includes all the bodily associations we have with using a bottle. For example, when we look at the bottle, reach out and take it, lift it to the mouth and drink, then put it down again.

The item (bottle), its features and qualities and our bodily relationship to it are known as schemas (patterns). These schemas become part of our brain and nervous system as we learn what a bottle is and how it works. That is, certain neural networks form and are reinforced with repeated use. I say this because I want to draw a connection between the word “bottle” and the fact that this word is physically “alive” in our bodies as neural networks.

In addition to the item, our bodily relationship, also found in frames are the important social associations. For example, think of the differing social domains evoked by the differing types of bottles there are:
a) Baby’s bottle (evokes: home, baby, mother, father, siblings, interrupted sleep, etc)
b) Tomato sauce (BBQ, family gathering)
c) Wine bottle (Dinner party, friends)

Notice that the social association also has its own features, settings, roles and their qualities. For example, one feature of the Dinner Party frame (Dinner Party is a frame) is being invited. The roles are host, dinner guests, those who didn’t get an invite. The qualities of those roles may be gracious host, a happy guest, grumpy guest, mixed men and women, over the age of 35, etc. The setting may be the host’s house, etc …

Notice that the social domain evokes a narrative. That is, first you have a friend who invites you to dinner. You get dressed, turn up at 7, with your bottle of wine, you have drinks, you eat. You all talk, laugh. The dinner party comes to an end, you thank the host and go home.

TO RECAP: Frames are activated by words or phrases, such as “bottle”. They include our schemas of what that thing is i.e. container, our schemas of our bodily relationship, how we use it. Frames include all our social associations with the item or thing in question. Frames evoke a narrative. All of these are learned and are embodied in our neural networks.

FRAMES IN THE POLITICAL DOMAIN

Let’s look at how frames work in the political domain. For example, let’s look at the word “IMPACT”.

We understand impact through our bodily experience, that is, from bumping into things and by observation of objects, for example a cricket ball sailing through a window. The word ‘impact’ evokes the following narrative:

“Force is applied to an object causing it to move. The object travels along a path and collides with another object that intersects with or is stationary on the first object’s path. The collision causes impact. One or both of the objects is damaged. If one of the objects is a person, the impact causes pain.”

If we put the words, “CLIMATE POLICY” before “IMPACT”, we create an issue-based frame. Here, the issue is the climate policy. The role of the first object assumes the quality of the climate policy. It is launched by an environment group and collides with the second object(s), you, the public, businesses, etc. The impact causes pain. The people who launched the climate policy and everyone who supports the policy are villains responsible for the pain. Everyone who is impacted and feels pain are the victims of the policy.

Here’s how this issue-based frame may be used:

“You support a climate policy of 100 per cent renewables by 2020. We’ve heard about the massive economic impact this will cause. Why do you support this policy?”

Notice how the framing constrains how we reason about the issue, the policy. If we accept the terms of this frame (“impact”) then we have lost the debate. Our task is to reframe the debate so that the audience is able to reason within our terms of reference. Some guide as to how this is done is offered below.

DEEP FRAMES… BY WAY OF METAPHOR

Issue-based frames are shaped by the fourth dimension that is found in frames, what is called DEEP FRAMES. Deep frames are our underlying worldviews, made up of our values, that shape and activate and are activated by issue frames and other surface frames.

So, what are deep frames and where do values come from?

To answer this question we need to look at metaphor and the role of metaphor in reasoning. It turns out that metaphor plays a very big role in how we reason, how we understand the world and deal with abstract concepts. In fact it is the norm.

Metaphor is a cognitive process where we think about, reason about or describe one thing by using the qualities of another thing. The first thing is the target domain and the second is the source domain. The qualities of the source domain are mapped onto the target domain.

For example, if I were to say, “I told my boss the report was crap and she bit my head off”, this is a metaphorical statement. In this case I am mapping the qualities of a ferocious animal onto my boss and in the process I am describing her state of fury towards me. This is an example of taking something in the world (a lioness) and mapping it to the target domain (my boss).

Let’s look at some common metaphors for understanding. To describe understanding we have phrases like:
1. I got it.
2. I grasp it.
3. Oh, I see.
4. I think I’ve got a handle on this now…
5. It went right over my head.
6. She’s hungry for ideas.
7. They’ve got no appetite for new ideas.

Notice how these metaphors for understanding draw from bodily actions such as holding, taking, manipulating, seeing, even hunger and digestion as a source domain for describing, reasoning about, understanding.

Another rich source domain for reasoning by metaphor is social settings and events. For example, sport is a very rich source domain. We typically hear phrases like:
1. Level playing field.
2. Kick an own goal.
3. Tackle the problem.
4. Let’s play as a team.
5. The ball is in your court.
6. Handball the problem.
7. On a good wicket.

To recap, we draw on things in the world, bodily action and the social domain to communicate and reason about abstract concepts, emotions, states of being, etc. As you can see, this process of metaphorical reasoning is very common.

Of course, metaphor is used to reason about politics and our national life.

An important discovery about metaphorical reasoning in politics was made by the Cognitive linguist George Lakoff. Being a linguist he looked at political speeches and he was confounded by the many contradictions contained in them.

For example, many Conservative speeches would extol the virtues of military spending, but oppose bigger government and more taxes. Similarly they would support capital punishment, but oppose abortion.

Progressive speeches would be just as contradictory. For example they may support freedom of speech, but oppose racial vilification.

This begged the question: is there any underlying coherency to these worldviews? Is there something that somehow connects and binds these seemingly contradictory facets within each worldview?

One clue came by way of the Conservatives. Conservatives constantly talked about family values. “Let’s get back to family values” “These are not family values” “Our party stands for family values.”

The story goes that Lakoff had recently read a paper by one of his students that showed how FAMILY acts as a source domain for THE NATION. For example, we hear terms such as:
1. Fatherland
2. Motherland
3. Founding fathers
4. Big Brother is watching you.
5. Sending our sons and daughters to war.
6. The Nanny State.

In these cases we are reasoning about our nation as a family. That is by importing our understanding of and learnt behaviours from our family experience into the national domain we are able to communicate and reason about national life.

Lakoff looked into this more closely and found that, in the literature, broadly speaking, there were two broad models of family. Two prototypical family models that characterise socialisation. It is these two different family models that form source domains for differing world views by importing their values and relations into the target domain.

What are the two family models?

The two family types are called the Strict Father model and Nurturant Parent model.

The Strict Father family is prototypically a:
· Traditional family with two heterosexual parents, a father and mother.
· The father is the head of the household and the mother upholds the authority of the father which is never questioned by the children.
· Children are considered naturally weak and lacking in self-control.
· Parents know best and teach children right and wrong.
· This teaching is reinforced with punishment when a child does something wrong.
· When children learn self-discipline, respect valid authority and know right from wrong, they are strong enough to succeed in a competitive world. The outside world is harsh.

· The Nurturant Parent family, prototypically:
· Has preferably two parents, but perhaps only one.
· Parents share household responsibilities.
· Mutually respectful communication is valued.
· Protection is a form of caring especially from external dangers.
· The principle goal of nurturance is for children to be fulfilled and happy in their lives.
· So when children are respected, nurtured and communicated with from birth, they gradually enter into a lifetime relationship of mutual respect, communication and caring.

Relations within these family types embody specific value sets which act as source domains for relations at the national level. That is value sets we know as ‘conservative’ versus ‘progressive’ values.

By “values” we mean emotionally laden, strongly held beliefs that taken together construct and inform our worldview.


These are the value sets uncovered by Lakoff.
Strict Father
Primary Values: Authority and Discipline

Implied values: Strength, Order, Ownership, Hierarchy, Duty, Purity, Physical security and Merit.

Nurturant Parent
Primary Values: Empathy and Responsibility

Implied values: Protection, Fulfilment in life, Freedom, Opportunity, Fairness, Equality, Prosperity and Community.

In the NATION is a FAMILY metaphor the role of parent is mapped onto the role of Government and the role of children is mapped onto the electorate.

Now, a note of clarification. In this metaphor, as in all metaphors, not all the qualities of the source domain are mapped onto the target domains. So too with this mapping: what is mapped are the power relations and value expectations from each of the family models to the national domain.

By way of example, the Howard Government was a Conservative government motivated by strict father values. I believe that the Conservative’s success in retaining government rested on the consistent projection of their values over that period. This touches on one of the central points made by George Lakoff. That is, the success of Conservatives world-wide rests on the fact that they know what their values are, they know what language is needed to project those values onto the public mind and as a consequence they have shaped the political agenda radically for the last forty odd years.

And, as a result we have the global financial crisis.

And we’re approaching run away climate change.

BICONCEPTUALISM

Now we all know that all families are different. These models are prototypes. In the real world they are mixed. Consequently not everyone is purely within the Authoritarian worldview, not everyone is in the Nurturant worldview. Most of us are Biconceptual.

This may manifest in different ways, for example, in domains of our life:
1. At home one may be nurturant but at work one may be authoritarian and disciplinarian.
2. One may have different views on political issues, for example support gay rights but demand more on military spending.
3. Or it may manifest as a conscious versus unconscious attitude, for example consciously accepting of different ethnicities, unconsciously xenophobic.

This may account for the diversity and complexity and seeming contrariness of any one person’s worldview. We’ve all heard the phrase trotted out by politicians such as, ‘fiscally conservative, socially progressive.’

There are two important conclusions that come out of biconceptualism. Firstly, because most people are biconceptual, frames from either the Authoritarian or the Nurturant worldview can resonate.

Recall that frames are physical. Repetition reinforces our neural networks and the values we want to project. If you repeat your frames they will tend to activate those neural networks associated with nurturant values. Even though those networks may be associated with a differing domain to the issue you are concerned with, activation will help to build association and over time reinforce that worldview.

Let’s take the example of swing voters and Howard Battlers. Once the ACTU mounted a communication campaign that centred on family values, these groups switched sides. The central image of that campaign was of a young woman trying to find childcare for her children and being forced by her boss to take a shift or get the sack. This depicted a threat to the core values: empathy, responsibility (for her children), protection of life opportunities, fairness. The rest is history.

The second important point is this: Speak to your audience as you would to your base. Use progressive value frames to appeal across a seeming divide. This will activate progressive deep frames in the biconceptual majority and sway them to your cause. The words for the values above should act as a vocabulary for your communication, but don’t be afraid to make use of visual images that similarly evoke your values.

The importance of this approach can’t be overstated. Global warming is a complex policy area. Your audience needs to understand where you are coming from, if you are clear about your value position, what you stand for, the facts of the issue will have context and meaning.

TO RECAP: Frames are made of:
1. Schemas for objects and bodily relations
2. Social experiences, events and settings
3. Narratives
4. Deep frames of worldviews and values shaped by family socialisation

THE GLOBAL WARMING PARABLE

I’d like to look now at the role of parable in framing. Parables are stories that act as a source domain to reason and communicate about something else. They’re useful to help us understand often abstract or complex ideas.


To help us communicate the complexity of Global Warming we can make use of parable.


Let’s look at the words that define this issue: GLOBAL and WARMING.


Without too much difficulty we follow a word association chain like this:


GLOBAL refers to Earth = OUR HOME
WARMING comes from a BURNING FIRE


Therefore we come to the metaphor: GLOBAL WARMING is like a BURNING HOME


The underlying narrative of this metaphor goes like this:


“You wake up at night and smell smoke. You look about and see flames. You rouse your family and escape the house. You wake your neighbours, warn them about the fire and tell them to call Emergency 000. The fire brigade arrives and puts out the fire, saving the house. But there has been some damage. The neighbours pull together and help to repair the house. The culprit for the fires is caught and brought to justice. You all tell the story of how the neighbourhood pulled together and saved your family and home from fire and restored your home.”


Here are some mappings for this metaphor:
Smoke and fire=global warming and atmospheric concentration of CO2-e.
Home= Earth.
Your family and neighbours= Australian public.
Calling Emergency 000= raising the alarm about global warming, pressuring government.
The Fire Brigade= Government and its response.
Damaged home= (depending on extent) global warming in the pipeline or run away climate change.
The Culprit/Arsonist= Coal, Oil industry and Government supporters.


Here’s an example of how this parable-frame may be used:


“If I’m told my house is on fire and there’s a 50-50 chance I and my family would die, what would I do? I’d get me and my family out of there and do everything to put out the fire. Not later, not sometime. Now. The scientists tell us that there is a 50-50 chance of run away global warming when emissions hit 450 ppm. So when your government tells you that 450ppm (or worse, 550ppm) is a ‘realistic and feasible’ target, they are gambling with your life, your family’s life, everything you do and know. If they can’t set goals that will protect life on earth they must be replaced with people who can act decisively to protect us. Don’t vote for defeat in advance. Vote to save your life.”


In future posts I will be looking at other ways this metaphor could be used. I encourage you to do likewise by posting your ideas and sharing them with each other. This site is dedicated to learning so your feedback, contribution and dialogue are welcome.


DEALING WITH NEGATIVE FRAMES


Lastly here are some tips on dealing with negative frames like the “climate policy impact” example above.

1. Don’t say “no” in your answer. For example: “No, that’s not true…”
2. Draw attention to the frame:
“I don’t accept the way you’ve framed that question.” OR “I don’t accept that frame.” There are plenty of other ways this can be done, like “its true that many in the coal industry make that claim...” Have a go at phrasing some.
3. Don’t use their words. By using their words you evoke and reinforce their frame.
4. Reframe the debate using your frames. State your values and narrative, weave the facts into the story (rather than the other way around).
5. Sometimes it’s good to acknowledge people’s fears “It’s true some people are concerned about losing their jobs, coal miners for example.” This also demonstrates empathy.

In future posts I will be looking at some typical negative frames and developing ways of responding. I invite you to join in. Share negative frames you’ve heard and together we can share ideas on how to reframe and speak our narrative.