Lazy Framing Effects
Nobody likes being called lazy. So how does somebody make a career off calling people lazy? Just ask Daniel Kahneman, who wrote _Thinking, Fast and Slow. _The whole thesis behind the book was: your mind is lazy. He has since made a lucrative career for himself by calling others lazy. Oh, and he ushered in the field of behavioral economics.
Daniel Kahneman wrote about the many cognitive biases where our mind becomes lazy and tries to take shortcuts- often to our detriment. There are plenty of biases which we surfer from, but the one I care about today are framing effects.
Framing effects are when the choice of a couple options are influenced more by how information is presented instead of the information itself. For example, would you rather get on a plane and hear that there were 176 flight casualties in 2021, or that 99.9999998% of people who flew in 2021 were safe? Clearly, one has a different framing perspective than another.
A lot of governments and news organizations play with the framing issue. My favorite example is how a Spanish broadcast framed Eden Hazard laughing with his previous team after his current team lost. You don’t even need to speak Spanish to feel this guy’s emotions. Compare that to BT Sports and you will see a world of difference!
Although that is a silly example, think about how one might frame a recent political victory:
Former Chief Secretary John Lee was elected with 99% of the votes cast
That is how Regina Ip Lau Suk Yee, a member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council Member framed a recent political victory. Another way of looking at this is that 99% of voters preferred John Lee to nobody. Was this really the people’s choice or an uncontested election?
Don’t get tripped up with how information is presented! This type of framing is dishonest and dangerous. There is often a reason one statistic is used over another. Keep a watchful eye!