This week I had the opportunity to read about frame
blindness and framing traps. While reading about frame blindness my first
thought was the blind spots that occur while driving a car or a boat. When I
was a kid my dad had a boat and one day he was teaching me to drive the boat.
He told me how to steer and how to the throttle the boat, but did not think
about the blind spots that could result from my height. I thought I was doing
great when all of the sudden he jumped over and frantically turned the wheel.
My blind spot almost caused me to hit a skier that was waiting for their boat
to come back and get them. The propeller from our boat destroyed their ski
rope, but the situation could have been much worse. Both my father and I
learned a very valuable lesson that afternoon about blind spots and the poor
decisions that can result when they are ignored.
When I think of framing traps I picture Tom trying
to catch Jerry. He always came up with very elaborate traps but was rarely able
to catch Jerry. The reason that Jerry remained unscathed the majority of the
time was because he was prepared for the traps. But what happened when Jerry
made a mistake or became overconfident? Tom would usually catch him and think
that he had his next dinner. Though this example is a cartoon, framing traps
and frame blindness can also occur in our everyday decision-making. Most people
do not realize that their decisions and views can be distorted or
oversimplified by framing traps (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001). Just
like when we drive a car or boat, we must learn to check our blind spots when
making decisions. Hoch, Kunruether, & Gunther (2001) offered three traps
that I have had the misfortune of falling into and must now be on the lookout
for in overconfidence, frame blindness, and recognition of your key assumptions.
Overconfidence is one trap that I fall into quite often.
My overconfidence comes in many forms whether it be thinking I can go for a run
when it has been six months since my last run, thinking I know where I am going
because I have been there before, or thinking I can assemble the new desk in an
hour because ‘that is what the instructions say’ (which I usually am still
trying to get it together a couple of hours later). According to Hoch,
Kunreuther, & Gunther (2001), “most of us suffer from a well-documented
tendency to overestimate what we know, which contributes to our tendency to
overvalue the relevance of our own frames and undervalue the relevance of
others” (p. 140). Confidence is a great
trait to possess but overconfidence can be harmful. According to Dr. Joyce
Ehringer, “larger amounts of
overconfidence can lead people to make bad decisions and to miss out on opportunities
to learn” (Berry, 2016, para. 11). I recall one incident in particular where my
overconfidence led to a poor decision.
When I was in
college, I had a friend who was going to present a guest sermon at one of the
local churches. My roommates and I were going to show our support, so we all
piled in the car and headed off to the church. One of my roommates had asked me
several times if I knew where the church was located as he wanted to get
directions. I was confident that I knew exactly where the church was because I
drove by it occasionally. With a smile on my face, I took us directly to the
church and we arrived a couple of minutes early. Well… at least I got us to a
church. But, unfortunately, it was not the right church. Because this was
before the advent of MapQuest or Siri, we frantically tried to find the correct
church and did eventually but arrived late. We missed his sermon and I felt
really bad about the whole situation. The incident even got me a nickname that
stuck for the next couple of years…Magellan.
So, could I have
framed this situation differently? Yes! I could have taken my roommate’s advice
and got directions before Sunday morning. I could have tried to find the place
on Saturday to make sure I knew its location. This example taught me a couple
of life lessons. The first lesson was that I should make it a point to be
prepared. I also learned that overconfidence can be risky in that it caused us
to miss an event.
Frame blindness is
also an action I occasionally commit leading to poor decisions. Frames are
important because they allow us to streamline our attention to what we believe
is most relevant and help us make decisions quickly, but there are instances when
you can make decisions based on the wrong frame and be oblivious to this fact (Hoch,
Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001). I made this mistake in dealing with my pets
and it opened my eyes to my actions.
My family was a dog family, so I was never around
cats growing up. Not long after my girlfriend and I moved in together her boss
was going to take their cat to a shelter as they could no longer keep her
because they found out one of the kids were allergic. She had been declawed, so
making her an outside cat was out of the question and would have been inhumane.
We talked it over and decided it would be best to take her. My girlfriend had
cats as a child so they began to bond very quickly. I did not have as much luck
bonding with her in the beginning. I was committing frame blindness and
treating her like I treated my dogs growing up. It took a while for the
lightbulb to go off and for me realize that cats and dogs respond differently
to similar behaviors. Cats have a tendency to scream in the middle of the
night. Cats walk on the kitchen counters no many how many times you tell them
not to. They even like to be petted differently than dogs. So, I had to adjust
my thought process and decision-making once I realized that she does not like
to be treated like a dog. We have now had the cat for over eleven years and the
cat and I have had the opportunity to bond.
The cat and dog scenario made me begin to think
about people in general. If I was blind in how I treated my pets am committing
the same mistake with people? There are many different Myers-Briggs personality
types and all people do not react in the same way to the same scenario. I
should be more careful and make sure I am not blindly treating people exactly
the same in the decisions I make.
In describing the elements of critical thinking
Nosich (2012) stated that assumptions were everything that is taken for granted
as you think about a subject. One technique to avoiding frame blindness is to
recognize our key assumptions. There were two recent situations where I did not
bring my assumptions to the surface creating a poor decision (Hoch, Kunreuther,
& Gunther, 2001).
I have previously mentioned that my organization
recently transitioned to a new computer system. During the transition, I relied
on my assumptions and did not question if some of the procedures would be
altered. When it was time to bill scholarships, I went through the normal
routine of building the spreadsheet and creating the journal entry for the
encumbrances. When I sent the journal entry to my supervisor for approval, she
questioned why I went through the process of the old billing technique when the
procedure was going to change. Gilbert (2005) warned that decisions based on
the past could cause mistakes. I did make a poor decision by acting on my
assumptions. I should have questioned my supervisor about the new procedure
because my actions created wasted time.
Last month my assumptions led me to another poor
decision. The Foundation recently hired a new Executive Vice President (EVP)
and I did not communicate with her about the reports that she would like to
present at the Board meeting. I operated under the assumption that she would
like to present the same types of financial reports that we presented under the
previous EVP, but that was not the case. My decision based on assumptions
caused extra work and wasted time.
Through this exercise, I learned that even though I
claim to be prepared, I have the propensity to make hasty decisions based on
frame blindness. I must slow down my decision-making process and watch out for
the framing traps that are associated with every decision. In retrospect, the
traps were not mice traps but more like bear sized traps that should have been
evident. I must continue to be cognizant of my frame blindness while keeping my
confidence at a healthy level and recognizing my key assumptions.
References
Berry, S. (2016). How too much confidence leads to bad decisions.
Retrieved from http://www.dailylife.com.au/health-and-fitness/dl-wellbeing/how-too-much-confidence-leads-to-bad-decisions-20160309-gnejvs.html
Gilbert, D. (2005). Dan Gilbert: Why we make bad decisions [video file]. Retrieved from
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_researches_happiness
Hoch, S., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. (2001). Wharton on making decisions. John Wiley
& Sons, Inc.
Nosich, G. M. (2012). Learning
to think things through: a guide to critical thinking across the curriculum (4th ed). Boston, MA: Pearson
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