Good morning.
Welcome to the second panel of today's conference.
My name is Bo Feng, I'm an associate professor in the Department
of Communications at UC Davis, and I'll be the moderator for this panel.
The theme of this panel is how perception changes reality.
I think this is a, a great continuation and
of complementation of the earlier panel, which looks at how perception of
the world, how perception of reality, including social events,
organizations and ethnic groups is shaped by different things.
In this panel, we're going to hear from, three wonderful panelists
talking about their research into the other side of the cycle of relationship
between perception and reality, how perception shapes reality,
shapes people's cognitions, behaviors, and so so on.
So we're going to have the presenters, panelists present first, and after that we
will open up the floor to questions from the audience and coming from the audience.
So, let me first introduce our first panelist, Dr. Alison Ledgerwood.
Dr. Ledgerwood is an associate professor of psychology at the University of
California Davis and also, a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology.
Dr. Ledgerwood's research focuses on people's use of social psychological
controls to either immerse themselves in the current context or to transcend it.
She also studies symbols as tools that people use to communicate
group identity across time, space, and disparate individuals.
The title of her talk today is sticky frames,
why negatives lodge in the mind and what to do about it.
So without further ado,
let's welcome Dr. Alison Ledgerwood.
[APPLAUSE] >> Hi.
Let's see.
So because I'm being recorded, I can't pace, I have to stand next to that.
Okay, we'll see how that goes.
Remind me if I just start wandering over, to come back.
So I thought I would talk today about a, oh I can't, I cannot pace at all.
I'm just going to stand here calmly like I'm, like I'm fine with that.
[LAUGH] >> About a topic that,
that has been hinted on hinted at in some of the morning sessions.
So Amber hinted at negative news stories sticking more than positive ones.
We had some hints from Kim about what
negative behaviors might tend to stick to organizational identities.
Brad asked Christina a question about stereotypes sticking to social groups
[SOUND] and so I'm going to be talking a bit about
why that might happen in a very broad and general way and
more broadly, I'm going to be talking about the question of how do people think.
I'm kind of obsessed with this question.
I'm a social psychologist, which basically means I'm a professional people watcher.
So, this is what I do, I try to figure out how do humans think and
how could we maybe think better and
here's something I noticed a few years ago about how I seem to think.
Here's a typical week in my life,
which often seems to revolve entirely around publishing papers.
So here I am, that's me, just go with it.
I'm going along at baseline and let's say a paper gets accepted, I get this rush,
this blip of happiness, and then I'm back to baseline by about lunchtime.
[LAUGH] A few days later, a paper might get rejected, and that feels awful.
My world is crumbling, and so I wait for that blip to end but somehow,
I just can't stop thinking about it.
[LAUGH] Here's the kicker, though.
Even if another paper gets accepted the next day, well, that's nice but
somehow I just can't stop thinking about that stupid rejection.
So what is going on here?
Why does a failure often seem to stick in our minds, so much longer than a success?
Well, together, with my colleague Amber Boidstan who you heard from
earlier this morning, I started thinking about this question, a few years ago.
This question of do our minds get stuck on the negatives?
Now we all know intuitively that there are different ways of thinking about things.
So the same proverbial glass, for instance, can be seen as half full or
half empty and there's quite a bit of research across the social sciences now
showing that the way you describe the glass to people matters quite a lot
in shaping how they feel about it.
So if you describe the glass as half full, this is called a gain frame because you're
focusing people on what's good, they tend to like it.
If you describe the same exact glass as half empty, a loss frame, well,
now people don't like it.
So here's an example of a kind of prototypical experiment that would look
at this question, that would test this question.
In this particular study,
participants were asked to evaluate a work team based on its past performance and
the participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions.
In one condition, one group of participants
read that 30 out of 50 of the team's past projects had been successful.
In the other group, the other condition, the participants read
that 20 out of 50 of the team's past projects had been unsuccessful.
So mathematically, objectively, the reality is exactly the same here, right?
It's just that some of the participants have had their attention focused on
the part of the glass that's full, and the other participants have had their
attention focused on the part of the glass that's empty.
Then they're asked, how good is this work team?
And what you can see is that participants evaluated the work team much more
positively when it's record had been described in terms of gains,
the success rate, compared to when it's record had been described in terms of
losses, the failure rate.
All right, so this kind of effect has been studied across economics,
psychology, political science, marketing, a whole range of different disciplines in
the social sciences and together, these studies basically converge on the core
idea that what people think about something, what they do,
depends on how information is currently described or framed.
So you can really think of the key message of this literature, this body of research,
as being about the power of the current context to shape people's perceptions and
behavior but because it focuses on the current context,
this literature, one assumption, or implication of this literature,
seems to be that people are just happy when they see a gain frame and
sad when they see a loss frame, right?
That it's easy to bounce from one to the other but
that assumption hasn't actually ever been tested.
So, we wanted to know what actually happens when you switch back and forth.
This seems like an important question to ask, right.
In the real world after all,
people don't just encounter a single frame, like they do in the lab.
Instead, information is often repeatedly framed and
then reframed before people act on it.
So you might be talking to your doctor and hear him or
her describe a medical procedure, in terms of its success rate but
then go to get a second opinion or read an article online that talks about that same
procedure in terms of its failure rate.
Or you might be browsing the morning headlines and
see an article that talks about a program or policy in terms of the number of
workers who have lost their jobs and then see a different article that talks about
that policy in terms of the number of workers' jobs that have been saved.
So we wanted to know what happens in this kind of situation.
Can people really just switch back and forth or
do they get stuck in one way of thinking about it?
Does one of these frames, one of these mental labels,
tend to stick more in the mind?
And there's reason to think that at least some kinds of mental labels might be
cognitively or mentally sticky in this way.
That once we've thought about something in a particular way, that way of thinking
about it might tend to lodge in our heads and resist our attempts to change it.
There's a classic paradigm in psychology used to study creativity,
called the Duncker candle problem, that illustrates this idea nicely.
So if you're in a study that uses this paradigm, you walk into a room and you
see on the table in front of you a candle, a box of tacks, and some matches, and your
mission should you choose to accept it is to figure out how to light the candle and
then fix it to the wall in such a way that no wax drops onto the table below.
Any ideas for how to solve it?
It's kind of hard.
Here's the funniest solution I've seen to this problem.
[LAUGH] And here's the correct solution.
Notice though why it's so hard to solve, participants struggle with this a lot.
It takes them a long time and often they don't get it.
The reason it's so hard for
us to figure out the correct answer here is that once you've conceptualized that
box as a box, it's really hard to re-conceptualize it as a shelf.
That box label sticks in your head and it's very hard to change it.
So we thought maybe a similar thing would happen with gain and loss frames.
Now if frames can be cognitively, mentally sticky in this way
it makes sense to predict that loss frames would be especially sticky.
And that's because there's a general and presumably very adaptive human tendency to
prioritize or focus on potential negatives and safety.
The logic here, evolutionarily speaking,
is that if you're considering a visit to the prehistoric pond, and
you can think of this as getting a drink or as potentially aggravating a tiger it's
useful, it's functional, it's adaptive for the tiger conceptualization to stick.
Once you've thought about it,
you don't want to forget about the tiger in your excitement over the possibility
of getting a drink.
So, we thought that lost frames the, when we conceptualize something as a potential
loss that way of thinking about it might tend to stick in our heads, and
linger there, even in the face of a potential gain frame.
To put that idea a bit more formally, we reason that loss frames might be stickier
than gain frames in shaping people's thinking.
In particular, we predicted that the effects of a loss frame might linger
longer than those of a gain frame, when information is subsequently reframed, and
that this asymmetry might arise because it's more difficult for
people to mentally convert a loss-framed concept into a gain-framed concept
than to move in the opposite direction to re-conceptualize a gain as a loss.
All right, so one of the first experiments that we conducted to test this idea
we wanted to look at how switching from one frame to another would influence,
how people feel about an issue?
In this case, a surgical procedure.
So here's what we did.
We had participants read passage that looked like this.
We said imagine that a national panel is evaluating a recently developed surgical
procedure that involves new robotic technology.
A three year study evaluating the procedure has just concluded.
And then we randomly assigned participants to one of two conditions.
And the gain frame first condition participants read that based on the data
experts agree that the survival rate for the surgical procedure is 70%.
In the loss frame first condition they read instead that the mortality rate for
the surgical procedure is 30%.
Okay, so 70% of the glass is full or 30% of the glass is empty.
And we've carefully designed this material so
that the only difference between the two conditions
is this subtle change in the description or the way that the issue is framed.
We ask participants to evaluate the procedure, how much they liked it?
By moving some sliders along a series of unmarked scales like this one.
And we can pause here for a moment because we know from decades of framing research
exactly what should happen at time one after this initial first frame.
And what should happen is people should like the procedure when it's described in
terms of gains much more than when it's described in terms of losses.
In fact, that's exactly what we see.
So these are our data.
And people, when the procedure was described using a gain frame,
when it's described in terms of it's success rate, they like it.
They don't really like it when it's described in terms of losses,
in terms of it's mortality rate.
But unlike in previous framing studies, we didn't stop here.
We kept going, so we gave participants some more information that really simply
reframed the information they'd seen before, using the opposing frame.
So participants who had seen the procedure framed in terms of gains, it's surv,
survival rate, now saw it reframed in term of losses, it's mortality rate.
And people who had seen a loss frame at time one,
now saw the same information reframed in terms of gain.
Okay so one condition goes from gain to loss,
the second condition goes from loss to gain, and then we asked participants
to re-evaluate the procedure along with same skills they used before.
So here's why we use these unmarked slider scales.
We didn't want participants thinking oh, I circled five before,
I better circle five again to be a consistent reasonable person.
Right, we just wanted a clean, pure measure,
how they were feeling about the procedure right now?
Then we can think about what we should expect to find,
if people simply respond to the frame that's right in front of them,
the current context, as this literature has typically assumed.
If that's what's going on, then given that these were our results at time one,
at time two these bars should just switch places,
that is people should like the procedure when it's described in terms of gain,
the outside two bars, regardless off when that gain frame occurs.
And they should dislike the procedure, when it's described in terms of losses,
the inside two bars.
Again, regardless of what came before.
And, in our actual data, when the framing switches from gain to loss,
on the left side of this graph, that's exactly what happens.
So people like the procedure, when it's described in terms of it's survival rate.
They don't like it anymore when it's reframed in terms of it's mortality rate.
But when we switch the framing from loss to gain, people seem to get stuck,
on the negative side of the scale.
They don't like the procedure when we describe it in terms of losses,
and you know what?
They still don't like it, when we reframe it in terms of gains.
So in other words,
there's a muted change in response to reframing when we start out with losses.
Compared to when they start out with gains.
Here's a different example using a different scenario.
Here we asked participants to imagine that the current Governor of n important state
is running against an opponent.
We said that when the Governor took office,
statewide budget cuts were expected to affect 10,000 jobs,
which would in turn affect the state and national economies.
And then again, we randomly assigned participants to one of two conditions.
In the Gain Frame first condition they read that under this Governor's
administration, 40% of these jobs have been saved.
In the Loss Frame first condition they read that under this Governor's
administration, 60% of these jobs have been lost.
We asked them to rate their preference for the current Governor versus an opponent.
And then as before we switched the framing so people who had seen has record framed
in terms of gains now saw it reframed in terms of losses.
People who had seen this record framed in terms of losses now saw it reframed in
terms of gains, and then they re-rated their evaluations of the governor.
So we've got people's liking for this governor compared to his opponent,
along the y axis, the height of the bars, and we expected to see a pattern of
results that would look like what we saw in our first study right,
even though we had changed the scenario, and that's just what we found.
So when the framing switched from gain to loss, people's preferences followed.
They liked the current governor when his record was described in terms of gains.
They didn't like him anymore when his record was reframed in terms of losses.
But when the framing switched from loss to gain, again people seemed to get stuck.
When his record was described in terms of losses at time one, they didn't like him,
in fact they preferred his opponent.
But when his record was reframed in terms of gains at time two,
now still don't like the current governor.
Okay, so again, the effect of reframing depended on whether people started off
with gains or started out with losses.
One final example, here we asked participants to evaluate two policies that
could potentially lead to a certain number of teachers jobs being saved.efr Or
lost in California, and you see a similar pattern of results.
This starts to look really familiar, right?
A big change in preferences when the framing switches from gain to loss.
A small change in preferences when it switches from loss to gain.
So this was interesting.
But our next question was, why does this happen?
And could it be that it's actually harder for
people to mentally convert a loss-framed concept into a gain-framed concept
than to move in the opposite direction, to convert from gains to losses.
So we wanted to look at how easily can people convert from one frame to another.
How easy is it, or difficult is it, for them to reconceptualize a loss-framed
concept as a gained framed one, or vice versa.
To test this question, we asked participants to imagine that there's been
an outbreak of an unusual disease and 600 lives are at stake.
And then we asked one group of participants if 100 lives are saved,
how many will be lost?
And we asked the other group of participants if 100 lives are lost,
how many will be saved.
So everybody just has to calculate 600 minus 100 and hopefully, please,
come up with the answer of 500.
But whereas participants in the first condition have to convert from
gains to losses in order to figure out that answer,
participants in the second condition have to convert from losses to gains.
We timed how long it took them to figure out that 500 is the answer.
And what you can see is the,
the direction of the conversion that they were re, required to make mattered.
So when they had to convert from gains to losses to get the answer to the problem,
they could do that quite quickly in about seven seconds on average.
But when they had to convert from losses to gains, oh, be patient,
they're students, be patient.
>> [LAUGH] >> Seven seconds.
When they had to convert from losses to gains, this is way,
way longer, right, almost 11 seconds on average.
So this suggests, right, you this, this, you get the same pattern of results
when you change the numbers in the math problems.
So it's not something about that particular calculation being especially
hard for our participants.
You get the same thing when you change the content of the scenario so
it's not something about thinking of human lives.
You get the same thing if you ask people to convert acres of crops lost versus
saved, that sort of thing.
And taken together, this research suggests that once we think about something,
once we conceptualize it as a potential loss, that way of thinking about it
can stick in our heads and resist our attempts to change it.
Okay, so what I take away from this research and
from a lot of related research in the social sciences is that our view of
the world has a fundamental tendency to tilt toward the negative.
It's pretty easy for us to go from good to bad but
much harder to go from bad to good.
We actually have to work harder to see the upside of things.
And this matters.
So here, for example, I'm going to show you economic well being from
2007 to 2010 aggregated across a variety of economic indicators.
And you can see that the economy tanked, just like we all remember.
And then by late 2010, it had recovered by most objective measures.
Now, here's data on consumer confidence that we polled over the same time period.
You can see it tanks right along with the economy, and then it seems to get stuck.
So instead of rebounding with the economy itself,
consumers seem to get psychologically stuck, back there in the recession.
Oddly then it take,
it may take a lot more, a lot more effort to change our minds,
our perceptions about how the economy is doing than to change the economy itself.
On a more personal level,
what I take away from this research is that we have to work to see the upside.
And I mean this literally.
It takes work, it takes effort.
Now we can actually practice this.
We can train our minds to do this better.
So there is research out of U.C. Davis in the Psych Department, Dr.
Bob Evans, showing that just writing about things that you're grateful for,
for a few minutes each day, or even a few minutes each week,
can substantially boost your happiness and well being and even your health.
So you end up experiencing fewer physical symptoms if you're kind of practicing
thinking about things that you're grateful for.
All right, so one effective strategy for
retraining our brain is to practice gratitude.
Another effective strategy is to rehearse good news and share it with others.
So we tend to think, right, that misery loves company, that we'll feel better if
we vent our negative emotions, and talk to other people about how bad our day was.
So if there's a frustrating meeting at work, or
an annoying traffic jam on the way home, or you get into a fight with your friend,
you talk about that with everybody, maybe for hours, right?
>> [LAUGH] >> But
we forgot somehow to talk about the good stuff.
And yet, this research suggests that's exactly where our minds need
the most practice.
So when we were just starting this research, Amber and I applied for
a grant from the National Science Foundation to fund some of it.
And we're waiting on pins and needles on what the decision is.
And finally, finally, the e-mail comes, and we open it.
And it says, congratulations your grant has been funded, and we say, hooray.
And then it says, unfortunately we had to cut your budget by 50%.
>> [LAUGH] >> And our first thought is oh my god,
we just lost half of our grant.
>> [LAUGH] >> This is terrible.
>> [LAUGH] >> And our second thought is wait,
wait, wait.
>> [LAUGH] >> We just got half of our grant,
this is good, isn't this good?
>> [LAUGH] >> And our third thought is wait,
are we participants in one of our own experiments?
>> [LAUGH] >> And for all the world,
even though we knew about our predictions and our facts, we were acting,
our minds were acting just like our participants' minds.
We couldn't stop thinking about the half of the grant we had lost.
But, we were determined not to think about it and
to retrain the way that our minds were working.
So for the next few weeks, when we corresponded over email, we would include
a mention or rehearsal or reinforcement, right, of the positive frame.
We would talk about how we were now grant funded.
And because we're serious academic scholars, we would include serious
academic scholarly pictures to reinforce the frame whenever possible.
>> [LAUGH] >> True story.
All right, so one strategy to retrain our minds is to practice gratitude.
Another one is to really rehearse good news and
share it with other people, anchor it in shared reality.
A third strategy that we can use to combat this, this,
negativity bias in our heads is to become more aware that bad tends to stick and
that it tends to propagate itself.
Right, somebody snaps at you or you snap at somebody else, and
that can stick with the person for the whole day.
And then they snap at the next person and the next person and the next person.
So how do you break yourself out of that cycle?
Well, psychological research on happiness suggests that one of the things that makes
us most happy is actually helping other people.
What's interesting about that is that when you're in a bad mood,
you tend to get really self focused and very focused on the negative.
So you're having a bad day at work, and every other negative
thing in your entire life and possibly the history of the world get's very salient.
It pops to mind very easily.
Right? And then you're grumpy,
and you're grumpy to the people around you.
And now they're grumpy too.
So how do you break yourself out of that cycle?
Go out of your way to focus on somebody else and do something nice for
somebody else.
So perform a random act of kindness.
Buy coffee for the person who is standing behind you in line, for
the homeless guy sitting on the street.
Give your umbrella to a stranger walking in the rain.
Go out of your way to make somebody else's day a little bit better and
suddenly your own gets better too.
So the point here, the take home message, is that our minds may be built to look for
negative information and to hold onto it once we find it.
And that may be very adaptive from an evolutionary perspective and not so
pleasant in the modern day world where we're generally safe from tigers.
But we can also, right, retrain our brains if we put some effort into it and start to
think a little bit differently about our lives and about the world around us.
Thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]