At APHSA, we use framing science and research to build common ground and drive our solutions. By understanding how our brains make meaning of communications that form our narratives—both productive and unproductive—we can better understand what we are up against in our field as we work to drive more effective policy solutions that advance well-being for all.

When we communicate an idea to someone, we want to believe that we are speaking into a blank slate with someone who is not only listening to us, but fully receiving what we have to say. The reality, however, is that we are speaking into a “sorting device” that has been taking information in from childhood and constantly finding ways to process it. Over the course of our lives, we apply cultural or simplifying models that make it easier for us to think about incoming information and our minds have a whole set of pre-existing patterns of thinking. And in our culture, certain narratives are repeated over and over and become “shared narratives.” You can spot them in common expressions and stories that almost everyone knows and how those expressions translate into widely engrained values and beliefs.

Through narrative work and cognitive science, we are working to understand the dominant frames Americans use to reason about issues we care about, and then identify what frame elements might allow us to shift old beliefs and provide “thinking tools”—ways people can think more productively about issues, particularly those that involve understanding systems and structures.