How Effective Framing Can Make Your Message More Persuasive
By Noah Goldstein, Ph.D.
Imagine that you are Doc, a well-respected medical practitioner and the unofficial leader of a group of seven close friends. Suppose that one of your friends never covers his nose or mouth when he sneezes, and that another of your friends is afraid of catching his germs, but is too Bashful to confront the sneezer directly with his concerns. Considering your medical background, you are motivated to persuade the sneezer to curb his microbe-disseminating behavior. But how? Would you stress to Sneezy the positive aspects of those who cover their faces when they sneeze, or would you emphasize the negative aspects of those don’t?
Like many questions in psychology, the answer to this question is, “It depends.” According to psychologists Hart Blanton and Charlene Christy (2003), how you frame your message depends on Sneezy’s perceptions of the relevant social norms. Specifically, you should focus on characterizing the behavior that deviates from the perceived social norm rather than conforms to it. Because people often seek to define themselves based on what makes them unique, they are more attentive to the costs and benefits of associating themselves with behaviors that deviate from, rather than conform to, the perceived norm. This means that attempts to influence other people’s actions should be more successful when the message is framed in terms of diverging from, rather than conforming to, the perceived norm.
For example, if constructive behaviors such as covering one’s face while sneezing are believed to be the norm, the message should be framed to accentuate the negative characteristics of those who deviate from the perceived norm (e.g., “Those who don’t cover their face when sneezing are very irresponsible”). In contrast, if destructive behaviors such as not covering one’s face while sneezing are believed to be the norm, the message should be framed to accentuate the positive characteristics of those who deviate from the perceived norm (e.g., “Those who do cover their face are very responsible”).
In an experiment designed to test this hypothesis, Blanton and his colleagues (Blanton, Stuart, & VandenEijnden, 2001) had their participants read one of two newspaper articles in which the prevalence of students opting for flu shots was varied: One article claimed that the majority of students were getting the shot, whereas the other claimed that the majority of students were not getting the shot. Next, the participants read a second article characterizing the behavior of those who do and don’t get flu shots. The message from this second article was framed one of two ways: Either the decision to get immunized was linked with positive characteristics (e.g. “Those who do get immunized are considerate of others”) or the decision not to get immunized was linked with negative characteristics (e.g. “Those who don’t get immunized are inconsiderate of others.”) Consistent with expectations, participants in the study were more influenced by the message frame that described the characteristics of people who deviated from, rather than conformed to, the norm: When they thought most other students were getting flu shots, they were more persuaded by the message characterizing those who did not get flu shots, and when they thought most other students were not getting flu shots, they were more persuaded by the message characterizing those who did get flu shots.
In this first study, the researchers actually changed participants’ perceptions of the social norms of the behavior in question before testing how the framing of the message affected the message’s persuasive prowess. But Blanton and his colleagues (Blanton, VandenEijnden, Buunk, Gibbons, Gerrard, & Bakker, 2001) also wanted to show that this effect would hold true even with people’s pre-existing beliefs about whether a behavior in question was common or uncommon. In another study, participants first reported their perceptions of healthy practices on campus. Two weeks later, they read a set of phony testimonials from other students that either ascribed positive traits (e.g., mature, smart) to those who do engage in healthy behaviors or negative traits (e.g., immature, stupid) to those who don’t. The researchers found that the more common participants perceived healthy practices to be, the more they were influenced by the message that negatively depicted those who are not healthy. In contrast, the less common participants perceived healthy behaviors to be, the more they were influenced by the message that positively portrayed those who are healthy.
These and many other findings on the topic make it clear that whether you are a manager, an educator, or even a parent, before deciding how to frame your persuasive message, you need to strongly consider your audience’s perceptions of social norms. Characterizing the behaviors that deviate from the norm will likely be a more effective approach than characterizing those that conform to the norm.
More generally, we hope we’ve shown that through the proper implementation of psychologically informed persuasion attempts, we can have a world in which people are healthier, coworkers are more compliant with your requests, and salad bar sneeze guards are totally unnecessary.
Source:
Blanton, H., & Christie, C. (2003). Deviance regulation: A theory of action and identity. Review of General Psychology, 7, 115-149.
Blanton, H., Stuart, A.E., & VandenEijnden, R. J. J. M. (2001). An introduction to deviance-regulation theory: The effect of behavioral norms on message framing. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 848 – 858.
Blanton, H., VandenEijnden, R. J. J. M., Buunk, B. P., Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., & Bakker, A. (2001). Accentuate the negative: Social images in the prediction and promotion of condom use. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31, 274 - 295.
Goldstein, N. J., & Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Using social norms as a lever of social influence. In A. Pratkanis (Ed.), The Science of Social Influence: Advances and Future Progress (pp. 167-192). Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.
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