Framing and Dissonance

Finally, and with little fanfare, I closed on my final report for my most recent grant this evening. The champagne rests in the fridge for the moment. The last two weeks have been, well, consuming. Now I rush headlong toward a second phase.

While writing and experimenting, I was occasionally drawn into blog and editorial discussions, some of which were mildly amusing. I even learned some new things, though not directly from the blogs, I'm afraid. Specifically, the topic of semantic "framing" came up during a cross-Wikipedia excursion in pursuit of a recollection about Newspeak driven by Christopher Hitchens' discussion of cognitive tyranny in a variety of forums. As a biographer of Jefferson and Orwell, Hitchens is uniquely qualified to address the problem of tyranny and fascism.

Semantic framing is the use of distinctive metaphorical terminology that is designed to provide a clarifying distinction with alternatives. It is the opposite of nuance in a way, and relies on positioning issues as risky (when opposed) versus beneficial (when in agreement). Interestingly, framing effects on economic decision making appear to be less effective on some people than others, with the distinguishing mental characteristic related to emotionalism (exposed as increased amygdala activity during fMRIs).

But the question that arose to me was whether we have an innate property that resists framing (and that, when we have it, drives us towards more analytical tasks and higher education levels; yes, based on my own supposition that higher education levels correspond to greater cognitive moderation) or whether it is itself a learned response to moderate one's emotional reaction to arguments and information that corresponds to the "liberal" aspects of higher education?