Fact Sheet: 6 Things to Know about Cultural Mindsets

At FrameWorks, we talk a lot about cultural mindsets. But what are they, and why do they matter?

Here are six essential features:

1. Cultural mindsets—or “mindsets” for short—are implicit.

   They are our deeply-held and often unconscious assumptions about the way the world works. Unlike opinions, which reflect people’s explicit attitudes and preferences, mindsets are the underlying ways of thinking that shape our attitudes and opinions—they are not what we think, but how we think. For example, an opinion is, “people should exercise regularly.” Underlying this opinion is the mindset of individualism: the idea that each person’s lot in life is a direct result of the choices they make.

2. Cultural mindsets are widely shared.

   People across demographic groups and in different parts of the country have and use these ways of thinking to make sense of the world. They emerge from and are tied to cultural and social practices and institutions with deep historical roots. When we identify “common” cultural mindsets we mean that they are generally shared and widely available in American culture—things like individualism, as noted above, or consumerism.

3. Cultural mindsets may be more salient for some groups than others.

   While cultural mindsets generally reflect shared patterns in thinking, different people and groups will engage with these common mindsets in different ways. For example, a mindset can be more salient—or more frequently drawn upon and more consistently used in thinking—for one group than for another. In addition, cultural subgroups within society have access to distinctive mindsets that emerge from institutions and practices specific to these groups.

4. People hold multiple mindsets simultaneously.

   It is almost never the case that some people hold one mindset and other people hold totally different ones. We all hold many mindsets that we use to make sense of the world at different times. Mindsets can be in tension with each other conceptually—for example, think about an us vs. them mindset (othering) and an interdependence mindset (we’re all in this together). The same person may think with an us vs. them mindset when thinking about partisan politics but an interdependence mindset when thinking about their local school or the benefits of public education.

5. Cultural mindsets are neither inherently good nor inherently bad.

   There generally isn’t a “wrong” mindset or a “right” mindset, but it can be helpful to think of mindsets as productive or unproductive. Productive mindsets open people up to new ideas and solutions and invite people into public conversations. Unproductive mindsets tend to close down conversations and shut down deliberate thinking.

6. Mindsets are brought to the foreground or background of people’s minds based on how we frame conversations.

   The choices we make in how we present information determine which mindset(s) get pulled to the forefront, shaping how we see the world. Focusing on common cultural mindsets allows us to build framing strategies that are capable of shifting the broader cultural context within which collective decision-making and action happens.

For further reading on cultural mindsets, check out Mindset Shifts: What Are They? Why Do They Matter? How Do They Happen?