dilluns, 6 de novembre del 2017

Marcs mentals




Sam Francis 1953


Aquests dies experimentem com determinats marcs mentals són socialment compartits i com condicionen la percepció dels fets. Sembla com si unionisme, independentisme i tercerviisme fossin tres potents marcs mentals àmpliament difosos i altament operatius en la Catalunya actual. I no només operen, sinó que s'enfronten entre ells (o més aviat enfronten les persones que els encarnen). Aquest seria un dels processos de fractura social que estem vivint.


En Manuel Castells resumia molt bé a La Vanguardia de l'1 d'octubre de 2005 aquesta noció de marcs mentals proposada per George Lakoff: "La ciència cognitiva ha establert que pensem en termes de marcs mentals i metàfores, abans d'entrar en el raonament analític. Aquests marcs mentals (frames) tenen existència material, són a les sinapsis del nostre cervell, configurats físicament en els circuïts neuronals. Quan la informació que rebem (les dades) no es conformen als marcs inscrits al nostre cervell, ens quedem amb els marcs i ignorem els fets."

Aquests marcs són estructures mentals, com diu el mateix Lakoff al prefaci de Don't Think of an Elephant!: "Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world. As a result, they shape the goals we seek, the plans we make, the way we act, and what counts as a good or bad outcome of our actions. In politics our frames shape our social policies and the institutions we form to carry out policies. To change our frames is to change all of this. Reframing is social change. You can't see or hear frames. They are part of what cognitive scientists call the "cognitive unconscious"-structures in our brains that we cannot consciously access, but know by their consequences: the way we reason and what counts as common sense." I com diu a Communicating American Values and Vision: "Framing is not primarily about politics or political messaging or communication. It is far more fundamental than that: frames are the mental structures that allow human beings to understand reality – and sometimes to create what we take to be reality. But frames do have an enormous bearing on politics… they structure our ideas and concepts, they shape the way we reason… For the most part, our use of frames is unconscious and automatic."

És difícil, doncs, modificar els marcs mentals per raonament analític o per confrontació amb els fets. Els marcs mentals són més potents que fets i raonaments. Com diuen al FrameWorks Institute de Washington, D.C.: "If the facts don’t fit the frame, it’s the facts people reject, not the frame."

Pat Heffernan comenta al respecte: "This pattern of thinking is sometimes referred to as confirmation bias, or the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions. The official psychological term for this behavior is “motivated cognition” — a tendency to bias our interpretation of facts to fit a version of the world we wish to believe is true. Political beliefs are even more susceptible. Research has found that when psychologists confront political partisans with facts contradictory to their opinions, they become even more convinced of their existing beliefs."  (https://conversations.marketing-partners.com/2010/08/changing-minds-and-confirmation-bias-when-facts-dont-fit-the-frame/)

O com deia un article de Joe Keohane al Boston Globe de l'11 de juliol de 2010, amb el significatiu títol de "How facts backfire. Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains", citat per Heffernan: "Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.”

I al The Guardian del 20 de juliol de 2017, Steve Rathje recordava precedents en aquest tema: "Research in framing was spearheaded by classic experiments by Nobel Prize Winner Daniel Kahneman and his collaborator Amos Tversky in the 1980s. Their research upended the assumption that humans behave rationally – an assumption that a number of economic models previously rested on. They instead showed that we are often consistently irrational, relying on a number of mental shortcuts to speed up our reasoning, which can make us remarkably sensitive to how things are framed."


La pregunta llavors és: com es poden modificar els marcs mentals (reframing), tant a nivell individual com col·lectiu? Què els pot fer canviar? Pat Heffernan diu: "Trying to change current frames and mental structures is difficult, particularly if we are unaware of their existence and power. Addressing frames, I believe, is at the core of the change communications needed to produce deep understanding of complex subjects and lasting, systemic change in mental and behavioral habits."


Necessitarem informació respecte a la manera de canviar els marcs mentals per tal de superar els atzucacs i tensions als que estem arribant actualment. I no només informació, sinó esforç per aplicar-la i poder anar més enllà d'aquesta confrontació dels tres marcs mentals esmentats. Si no ho aconseguim, ens quedarem amb una societat encallada per la que circularà fàcilment el ressentiment.