Making better people.

 

I was attending a tech training event when someone asked me what my goal as a professor was.  Since he was probably expecting me to say something like - I want to teach them how to develop creative briefs, he was shocked when I said that my goal was to make my students better people.

 

When I began teaching 17 years ago I realized that I was lucky if I remembered one thing from any of the classes I had taken in college.  So I asked myself - if I want students to remember one thing what would it be?  Since I was teaching advertising the answer was - Does it make me want to buy something?  Given the tendency to evaluate advertising as entertainment, just this simple reframing opened the door to new observations.

 

I'm not sure at what point I began to realize that my students were in fact children.  Perhaps it was after a few years of fielding their creative excuses for not doing their assignments.  My favorite: "The cruise ship didn't have Word." 

 

Therefore, I wasn't totally surprised when I learned that the human brain is not fully formed until age 25.  I adjusted accordingly.

 

I realized that simple things like explaining that deadlines don't change because you are having trouble meeting them, matter

 

Likewise, making them understand that granting exceptions for one student is unfair to all the others may be one of the most important concepts I teach. 

 

More recently my emphasis has shifted to helping them to recognize fake news and distinguish facts from opinions.  (Hint: Don't ask Siri.)

 

I hope that  I have created enough ripples at this point for my goals to have had impact not only on my students, but also on their friends, families and colleagues.

 

Time management, fairness and being able to recognize what's true and what isn't are all far more important in the long run than writing a terrific creative brief is.

 

And who knows?  Maybe they will remember the rule of threes too.

Why are researchers asking the wrong question?

 

Words matter.  Just changing one word in a research question can vastly impact the results. 

A definitive study from Loftus & Palmer in 1974 demonstrated that changing the descriptor of an accident from "bumped" to "smashed" changes the testimony from eyewitnesses.  (McLeod, 2014)

 

You can check out a recreation of the experiment from Brain Games here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ-96BLaKYQ

 

I recently had the opportunity to interact with a customer service person at an organization I do business with.  The interaction which was above and beyond the typical contact went well, so I was prepared to provide feedback to the company.

 

When I opened the email the company sent, I expected to see the question: "How satisfied were you with the customer service that you received?"  I would have responded with a 10 out of 10. 

 

But the email they sent me asked - "Based on your recent call with Company X customer service, how likely are you to recommend Company X to a friend or colleague?"  My answer to that question is 0 out of 10.  

 

Why?  Because you don't pay me to market your services and I don't work for free.

 

I am not sure why companies don't get that. 

Because I didn't want my answer to reflect poorly upon the person that I spoke with, I chose not to answer at all.

This is not an isolated incidence.  I am not sure when companies decided that if they only have one question to ask this would be the one.  

But I am sure it's not providing them with any meaningful feedback.

 

McLeod, S. (2014)  Loftus & Palmer. simplypsychology.org.  Retrieved July 6, 2021, from

https://www.simplypsychology.org/loftus-palmer.html

Behold the power of framing.

How you ask a question matters.  In the car crash demonstration, changing the cue from "smashed" to "bumped" when asking how fast the car was going had a significant impact of replies.  We call this framing.

 

And it can be used to change perceptions of many things.

 

http://psychyogi.org/loftus-and-palmer-1974-eyewitness-testimony/

 

If you are as old as I am, mentioning Rwanda brings up memories of the 1994 genocide, in which 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were killed by the majority Hutus in 100 days.

 

But if you are under the age of 26, you weren't born when the tragedy occurred, so you would have no memory of it.

 

That makes Rwanda ripe for reframing.  And they have taken full advantage of the opportunity. 

 

The tourism board did a campaign focusing on gorillas and gorilla protection.  They used social media to promote the opportunity to spend time with gorillas and sold tickets to the annual Kwita Izina, a Rwandan ceremony of giving a name to a newborn baby gorilla. (Mzezewa, 2019)

 

It's no surprise that they have been successful.  After all traveling is all about the experience. ;-)

 

Places aren't the only things that can be reframed.  Words can be too..  

 

Which brings us to the term "bipartisan."  According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of bipartisan is: of, relating to, or involving members of two parties."

 

Nowhere in that definition does it say that the members of the two parties need to be serving in Congress.  A fact the current administration has taken note of.  As a result they have defined policies that are supported by the majority of Americans as bipartisan regardless of whether or not Republicans in Congress agree. (2021)

 

It's an interesting approach.

 

Have you heard anything about the Biden administration's bipartisan approach?  If so what did you hear?  And where did you hear it?  If this is the first time you are hearing about it, how does it make you feel?  Do you agree with the idea of letting the people decide instead of their representatives?

 

Have you noticed that President Biden refers to Trump as "the former guy?"  What do you think about that reframing?  Is it effective in influencing your opinions?  Will it be for others?

 

Will you go to Rwanda or another country that has been reframed?  How do you choose your vacation locations?  Do you worry about things that happened there before you were born?

 

Can you think of other examples of reframing that have influenced your decision-making?

 

 

Mzezewa, T. (2019, November 24)  How to Rebrand a Country.  nytimes.com.  Retrieved May 3, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/23/travel/rebrandng-croatia-colombia.html

 

(2021, April 14)  Biden's Strange New 'Bipartisanship." wsj.com.  Retrieved May 3, 2021, from

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-strange-new-bipartisanship-11618440787