Our Research
We apply rigorous social science methods to study how people think about the biggest social issues of our time—and how our communications choices can build support for solutions.
This is not the two focus groups and a pop-up survey that you might do for a marketing campaign. We integrate a set of methods from across the cognitive and social sciences into an iterative process that uncovers patterns in how people think about issues, and the effects that framing choices have on the outcomes you care about. Some of our methods were developed here at FrameWorks. Others are common social science research techniques that we deploy in new ways to answer real-world questions and inform social change practice.
How We Do It
Research Methods
In this part of the process we listen to and learn from folks working on an issue to identify a set of fundamental principles and concepts around which the field wants to build public understanding.
Questions this helps us answer:
What is the story you want to tell?
What are the ideas you want people to better understand?
In this part of the process we apply principles from psychological anthropology and cognitive linguistics to understand the implicit understandings, assumptions, and patterns of reasoning that people use—without knowing it—to think and make decisions about an issue.
Questions this helps us answer:
Not what, but how do people think about and make sense of an issue?
What stories are people currently hearing and/or believing?
In this part of the process we dig into the field’s current communication practices and the narratives being advanced through those working on the issue.
Questions this helps us answer:
What is the story being told by the field?
How is this contributing to the larger public discourse on an issue?
In this part of the process we document the ways that issues are being framed on TV, on social media, and/or in traditional news sources. We are looking for patterns in ways that stories are being told and overarching narrative themes. We look for both the presence and dominance of certain frames, the co-occurrence of frames, changes over time, and other patterns of association.
Questions this helps us answer:
What are the stories being told in popular culture?
What messages are people receiving in their daily lives?
In this part of the process we begin exploring different ways of framing the issue. We do this by generating a wide range of candidate frames—such as explanatory metaphors, values, or messengers—that have the potential to shift thinking in productive directions. This work involves collaborative design labs, creative generation sessions, and initial piloting with potential messengers.
Questions this helps us answer:
What are potential framing strategies that might work to shift thinking and increase understanding of the core ideas?
In this part of the process we use rapid-response interviews to explore how a wide range of candidate frames affect people’s thinking about an issue.
Questions this helps us answer:
Which of our framing hypotheses shows potential for shifting thinking?
Which frames warrant further testing?
In this part of the process we conduct a series of large-scale quantitative tests to determine which frames build understanding, shift thinking, and affect support for solutions.
Questions this helps us answer:
Which frames are working, on which outcomes, and for what groups?
Which frames are having the most positive effects across the widest swath of the public?
In this part of the process we use qualitative focus group methods to explore how frames are taken up and used in group conversations—and have the best chance of entering and persisting in the public discourse.
Questions this helps us answer:
How are the effective frames working?
How might this inform an overarching framing strategy?
In this part of the process we use innovative, mixed methods to measure the effects of repeated exposure to a frame over time.
Questions this helps us answer:
How do frames affect deep mindsets over time?
In this final part of the process we evaluate how members of a field apply a framing strategy, in order to refine recommendations and build tools for communicators.
Questions this helps us answer:
How usable are these framing strategies?
How might a framing strategy need to be modified in order to increase the chances that communicators will use it in their work?
Hear from our founder and Board member, Susan Nall Bales, about our research methods.
