Jay Doubleyou: story-telling: the art of framing

Tuesday 26 August 2014

story-telling: the art of framing

We've already considered how 'framing' can influence how we see certain issues:
Jay Doubleyou: story telling: creating narratives around climate change
Jay Doubleyou: story-telling: creating narratives around money and debt

And we've looked at how we can be 'manipulated':
Jay Doubleyou: how to spot media bias
Jay Doubleyou: positive power and influence

Looking again at the research:

How you frame it De Martino and his colleagues scanned the brains of 20 volunteers. At the same time, the researchers told the participants they received a sum of money and then repeatedly posed them one of two choices: Keep a chunk of money or gamble, or lose a chunk of money or gamble.

As expected, those told they could keep money or gamble were generally leerier of risk. On the other hand, volunteers informed they could lose money or gamble often were more risk-seeking.

The volunteers who were more susceptible to the framing effect showed greater activity in an emotion- and learning-related brain region called the amygdala.

People most immune to this framing effect had increased activity in other brain regions, the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex, "some of the most modern areas of the brain, the most different between us and the other primates," De Martino told LiveScience. When these are damaged, the resulting behavior can be driven completely by emotion and impulse.