'Let me reframe the statement. You will feel better, I promise.'

The framing effect is a very interesting subject. As I forgot to ask two questions during our last session, I will try to discuss them in this post. The first one is concerned with justifying statements and the second one with leading questions.

1. The swine flu is a great danger.

Our mind plays games with us all the time. According to my understanding, the subject that we discussed last friday is closely related to the general subject of 'why do we rephrase sentences'. For me, personally, there is no difference between the famous break up lines: 'it's not you - it's me' and 'it's not me, it's you', as the outcome is obviously the same. As human beings we tend to have a preference in terms of forming sentences - depending on the situation. The example I would prefer to examine is the swine flu - sold to us as something extremely harmful.

Even if you are not the '24/7 news-eater type', you must have heard about the famous H1N1 Influenza. Mass-media influence shaped the public opinion on this matter, which I believe is a great example of using something similar to 'the framing effect'. People started to make decisions such as: I will not travel to Europe, UK especially, because of the swine flu. This is actually quite terrifying as it shows how much the media present certain information and thus form our understanding of a particular problem. In order to see how inadequate is being serious about 'the swine flu pandemic' we can simply rely on the statistics, that in terms of death numbers are very clear: until september 2009 there were about 1600 dead victims of swine flu in the US (flucount.org). Simultaneously, the Centers for Disease Control estimates 36,000 people die annually in the United States from the regular flu (abc news). What is more, ss far as I remember, the first name that the virus H1N1 was given was the 'Mexican flu' (from the 'huge' number of casualties). If people would actually think more scientifically they would know, that poorer countries, in which medicines are not easily accessible, always have higher numbers of deaths.

2. Where was he standing when he shot her?

But how do you know that he actually shot her - would be my question. Leading questions are often used in courtrooms and police stations. The 'framing theory' relates to building problem-represantations that determine decisions. But at the same time there is no theory that explains why and when the framing effect occurs (Maule, Villejoubert 2007). My guess is that it is a perfect 'window of opportunity' to influence our judgment. Leading questions are not as easily detectable as one might think - especially in stresfull conditions, interviewing etc. E.g. when I was 12 I was hit by a car driven by a female. I remember all the details that actually matched the evidence material (skid marks etc.). She happened to be a friend of one of the police officers who were asking me same questions in different ways, such as:

-What was your position before you started to run towards the other side of the road as you saw the car ?
-Where were you before you jumped towards the other end of the pedestrian presinct even though the car was coming?

Giving the answer to the second question especially makes me guilty of the whole incident for instance.

It seems to me that leading questions and certain statements do have influence on our judgment and are somehow related to the framing effect that occurs during the process. The question is to what extent can we actually control it.


References:

Maule, J., & Villejoubert, G. (2007). What lies beneath: Reframing framing effects.
Thinking & Reasoning, 13 (1), 25-44.

http://www.flucount.org/

http://www.abcactionnews.com/news/local/story/Common-flu-far-more-deadly-than-swine-flu-in-U-S/SYwVqQF_3Umy0qY3qhp9zQ.cspx