Common Questions

Cultural mindsets are deeply-held assumptions about the way the world works that are widely shared across a culture or society. Whereas an opinion is something a person might consciously hold (something like: “I think people should work out regularly”), a cultural mindset is an underlying way of thinking that is highly durable and transcends issues (something like the “individualism” mindset: that each person’s lot in life is a direct result of the choices they make).

Cultural mindsets emerge from and are tied to cultural and social practices and institutions with deep historical roots. At the same time, in moments of social upheaval, mindsets can be pushed into flux and become destabilized, leading to fairly rapid changes in thinking.

Check out six essential features of cultural mindsets here.

It is almost never the case that some people hold one type of mindset, and other people hold another type. (This is where mindsets are different from opinions.) We all hold many mindsets that we use to make sense of the world at different times. When we identify “common” cultural mindsets we mean that they are generally shared and widely available in American culture—things like individualism, or consumerism for example.
 
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). But seemingly contradictory mindsets are simultaneously available to people, and they might be drawn upon to different extents at different times. For instance, the same person may think with an us vs. them mindset when thinking about partisan politics but an interdependence mindset when thinking about public health.
 
When a mindset is “common” or “shared” it doesn’t mean that everyone endorses it to the same degree. Diverse life experiences definitely shape the extent to which certain mindsets are foregrounded or backgrounded in our thinking. But cultural mindsets are widely available as a way of making sense of the world by people across American society. Focusing on common cultural mindsets allows us to build a communication strategy capable of shifting the broader cultural context within which collective decision-making and action happens.

Public opinion research examines the explicit attitudes and preferences that people hold on specific issues. (For example, what percentage of Americans support the Affordable Care Act.)  Cultural mindsets research explores the deeper, underlying ways of thinking that shape and explain patterns in public opinion. 
 
Whereas public opinion research examines what people think, cultural mindsets research examines how people think. For example, public opinion research might demonstrate that people support health education programs more than they support policies that foster access to healthy housing. Cultural mindsets research explains why this is, revealing the role that the mindset of “health individualism” plays in driving these opinions and preferences.

If culture is a set of shared, implicit mindsets that individuals use to make sense of the world, culture can change as our collective mindsets begin to shift—in this case, based largely on societal upheaval that affects many parts of our lives. (For example, think of how much the COVID-19 pandemic affected our lives in and after 2020.)
 
Cultural mindsets can shift in many ways. For example, certain mindsets can become more or less dominant over time (e.g., mindsets about the power of the free market became more dominant in the second half of the 20th century, while mindsets around the value of collective labor action grew weaker). The boundaries of a mindset can also stretch as people apply existing ways of thinking to make sense of new realities (e.g., the contours of established mindsets about marriage have stretched to encompass same-sex marriage). And new circumstances can introduce entirely new ways of thinking (as was the case in the mid-20th century when mindsets about the dangers of smoking emerged and the maleficence of tobacco companies took hold).

It’s true that it takes more than just public thinking to change policy. It is also true that framing is not the only tool in the box, and we need to organizing and avocacy in order to make policy changes. That said—there are very few moments in history where big changes have happened without a big shift in public thinking. Shifting public opinion is instrumental in convincing political institutions to take action, and we’ve seen this throughout history—from the civil rights movement, to child labor laws, to marriage equality.  
 
Targeting politicians and other changemakers is a good and important tactic when there is a specific or immediate policy goal. However, we also need to build public understanding of social issues and demand for change if we want to see durable, widespread change.

Framing is the long-term endeavor of shifting public thinking in a new direction, whereas messaging tends to be targeted at a specific and measurable goal that suits the short-term moment. Whereas messaging can be varied across different audiences and settings, framing needs to be consistent over time to strengthen particular mindsets across society.
 
The tools of framing are “frame elements”—things like metaphors, values, and explanatory chains. We can embed these frame elements into our messages, but the actual language of the message itself can be adapted as needed. (For instance—there’s more than one way to embed a value within a message.)
 
The aim of frame testing is to assess the potential of the conceptual content of frame elements (for instance, what happens when we emphasize a certain value, or draw on a certain metaphor?). The aim of message testing is to assess the performance of the precise wording of the message, such that the message itself can be recommended to the field.