Which would you rather buy?
- Yogurt that contains 20% fat or yogurt that is 80% fat-free?
- Soap that leaves 5% of germs alive or soap that kills 95% of germs?
This is called the “Framing Effect” and it’s a standard marketing or copywriting principle: whenever there are two ways to present information, frame that information in the most attractive way. You’ll not only increase sales, but your customers will be more satisfied, too. The information is the same, but you can frame it positively or negatively.
How you frame something matters immensely to your satisfaction with it. That principle doesn’t just apply to marketers and business people; it’s crucial for a healthy life as an expat. In today’s article, I want to share why.
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What the Framing Effect is
The Framing Effect was first demonstrated by psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, who identified that people’s responses to a hypothetical treatment for a fatal disease differed dramatically based on how the information was presented. Their experiment supposed that 600 people had a fatal disease and would die, but an experimental drug was available.
If the researchers presented the experimental drug as saving 200 lives, then 72% of respondents supported the use of the drug. If they presented the experimental drug as resulting in 400 deaths, though, only 22% supported using the drug.
The information was exactly the same: all 600 people will die without treatment and the drug could save 200 lives, but not 400. All that differed was the framing of the choice: save 200 lives or result in 400 deaths. Yet there was a 50% difference in how people responded to support or oppose the use of the experimental drug.
This is the Framing Effect: whether the information is presented positively or negatively greatly influences people’s responses to that information.
Why the Framing Effect matters to expats
The reality is that the Framing Effect describes a psychological reality of how human beings process information. It wasn’t invented by marketers or politicians, though they use it all the time. Instead, it was discovered by psychologists who recognized that this is how brains process information.
What does that mean for us expats? It means that our brains are also susceptible to the Framing Effect, even when we’re not being presented with a sales pitch or political spin coverage. Just living our lives in a foreign country means that our brains are constantly evaluating and responding to information, influenced by the Framing Effect.
Our joy or frustration is affected more by how we frame a situation than by what actually happened.
This means that our joy or frustration as an expat is affected just as much or even more by how we frame a situation than it is by the actual events of a situation.
Consider the “constant staring” I experience in my host culture, which I wrote about in How Not to Be Raging Mad at Your Host Culture:
It is constant, endless staring that never seems to end; it is constant, brazen, unapologetic, and in-your-face staring. I didn’t realize how pervasive it was until I traveled with my kids to another country and my son asked me, “Dad, why aren’t the people here staring at us?” He just figured that being stared at was normal—so much so that the absence of staring struck him as odd!
People stare at me constantly. That’s the objective reality, but how I frame that staring matters immensely to whether I am frustrated, tolerate it, or am excited by it.
Consider three different ways I could frame it:
- People are rude and don’t respect my privacy, so I should fight their staring.
- People won’t ever stop staring, so I have to grin and bear it.
- People are curious when they stare, so I should talk with them.
I’ve seen people have all three responses to being stared at. The first leads to aggravation. The second to “tolerance” that is eerily similar to low-level resentment. The last could actually lead to friendly interactions with locals and even friendships.
Why? If we frame an act of staring as rudeness or if we frame it as curiosity, either interpretation will impact how we interpret an event and respond to it.
Why our mental framing is usually wrong
Notice that the Framing Effect says that our response to information matters immensely based on whether the information is presented positively or negatively.
But what is positive or negative?
The answer to that question is not universal—it highly depends upon one’s cultural upbringing and values. For example, my host country’s government censors movies so they do not contain nudity. I love it. There are movies that I’m glad to go see in the theater here that I would never go see in the US. I see that censorship as positive based on my values. Other expats hate the censorship and so buy the full movie instead of a censored version.
Why do people see the same action as positive or negative? Not because the actions being taken are different. We’re both responding to the exact same situation. It’s because, with different values, we interpret or frame the situation as either positive or negative.
As expats, though, our framing is almost always initially wrong, for a few different reasons.
An expat’s framing of a situation is almost always wrong.
We do not see what we see
Expats not only hear a foreign language wrong, but we see a foreign culture wrong. We ignore subtle clues that locals see and we even miss gigantic clues that locals can’t avoid. We initially interpret what we see through a lens of what matters to us in our passport culture, and thus we have a different reaction to a situation than locals have. We miss the “Carefully observe and describe” part of C-A-L-M, so all our thoughts, including our framing, are based on this wrong perception.
Before we can frame something as positive or negative, we have to see it rightly. We rarely do.
We misinterpret what we do see
We not only don’t see everything that locals see in a situation but we also interpret wrongly what we do see. We often interpret what we do notice through the lens of our passport culture. We skip the “Avoid judgment” step of C-A-L-M and so can never get to the “Learn humbly” step.
We frame an action as negative based on our passport culture’s values without taking the time to learn that the local culture may interpret the action as positive.
Cross-cultural stress often occurs because of incorrect framing
Much cross-cultural stress comes from the fact that our mental framing of an event is wrong. I discussed this in How Not to Be Raging Mad at Your Host Culture Part 1 and Part 2.
Both the staring that I experienced (Part 1) and the sexual harassment that Marilyn experienced (Part 2) stemmed largely from misunderstanding what was happening in a situation.
Because the situations were misunderstood, of course the framing was wrong. If you think people are staring because they’re rude, that framing will influence your thinking. If you think people are sexually harassing you when you’re acting appropriately, that will influence how you react.
But if you can understand local cultural norms by local cultural values, instead of judging them by your own values, you’ll go a long way to being able to frame things better. Using C-A-L-M, you’ll better understand that other people may interpret your actions in ways that are unexpected to you, based on cultural norms.
How reframing expat life can help you
Ideally, you can understand the difference of cultural values and norms) and practice C-A-L-M so that the way you observe and understand a situation is accurate. At that point, you can more easily reframe a situation.
But there’s a simpler and faster way to reframe a cross-cultural situation: force yourself to come up with a positive interpretation of the situation. Even if your alternative explanation is not accurate at this point, it doesn’t matter. The help comes from being able to identify a different framing of the situation.
Here are some examples:
| Negative Framing | Positive Reframing |
|---|---|
| Someone is ripping me off with a “tourist” price | I have the opportunity to be generous to someone who makes less than I do |
| That person is rudely staring at me | That person is curious about me. Maybe they can be a friend. |
| This is so much harder than in my passport country | I have an opportunity to learn patience as I face challenges locals also face |
| That person is stand-offish and cold | I’ll need to take longer to be friends with that person |
| That person just won’t say “yes” or “no” | That person doesn’t want to hurt my feelings |
| That person refused to help me | That person was honest about their ability to help |
| This company doesn’t respect my work-life balance | This company is deeply committed to achieving their mission |
| No one just trusts what I say; they require documents to prove everything | I can be very confident of trusting what documents prove, I don’t have to just take someone at their word |
| The rules are so strict here and people follow them so exactly. Ugh! | The rules ensure people are treated equally with less chance for bribery or corruption |
| This food is so weird looking and gross | I’ll have a great story to tell about eating this! |
| The police presence and surveillance are draconian | I’ll be safe from lots of crime here |
| That person just showed up at my house uninvited | I’m glad this person wants to spend time with me |
| That family requires me to call them before showing up at their house | They value me enough they want to make sure they’re not distracted when they’re with me |
Now, ideally you’ll do the work to understand local norms by local values, but even if you don’t, a quick mental reframing from negative to positive can help you react to a situation in a better way. The more informed you are about a culture (consider examining a cultural taxonomy for your host culture), the more accurate your reframing will be and the faster you’ll be able to reframe events.
Even if your reframing isn’t accurate, it still benefits you to do it.
The benefit of reframing
Hopefully you’ll immediately recognize the benefit that reframing will give you, but let me draw out just a few of the benefits that I’ve seen.
Reframing enables you to learn
Your immediate impulse to something you frame as negative is to judge it, a reaction that will prevent you from actually understanding what’s happening.
Reframing gives you time to actually explore and learn.
The moment that you see a positive interpretation is possible, you’re now in a position to learn. What’s funny is, even if you don’t think the possible reframing is true—or even if you know that the reframing is wrong!—the simple act of reframing puts you in a position of humility where learning and growth is possible. Humility is crucial for expats and reframing helps you gain an ounce of humility to learn.
Reframing balances your mental health
When you reframe negative things as positive, I don’t mean that you should see the world through Pollyanna-like rose-colored glasses of only positive things. Rather, I mean learning to look through a cultural event in a way that recognizes both the good and the bad. Too often as expats we only see the negative parts of a culture and so we frame everything as negative. By forcing yourself to reframe something as positive, you have a more holistic picture of the world that is probably more similar to how locals see the world.
Being constantly surrounded by stressors and “negative” things affects you mentally. Learning to reframe them as positive helps you avoid those mental challenges.
Reframing boosts your adaptability
One of the biggest challenges we expats face is being flexible when we encounter unfamiliar or challenging situations. If you can reframe something negative as positive, you become more adaptable and better able to embrace the situation.
Reframing gives you permission to step back from your expectations and recognize that there actually are more ways to approach life than you think, and that every difference has at least one positive side to it. Once you recognize that different interpretations can exist, you can be open to new ways of doing things without feeling threatened by them. You’re no longer locked into the mindset of “right vs. wrong” but instead can see “different vs. different,” which will help you tremendously.
Reframing preserves your relationships
Living in a new culture can sometimes strain relationships, with locals, other expats, and even with family and friends in your passport country. If you reframe negative things that hurt you, you don’t just alter your own perspective—you also protect and strengthen your relationships.
Too often we feel offended or hurt when people act in a way we interpret negatively. Reframing it enables you to be less judgmental, ask the person about it so you can learn, or just forgive them outright. The simple act of reframing helps you respond with understanding rather than defensiveness, which fosters empathy and respect in your relationships. In the end, reframing can transform potential conflicts into opportunities for deeper connection and understanding.
Conclusion
Reframing events isn’t just a tool for marketers—it’s essential for expats who want to thrive in cross-cultural situations. By actively choosing to see a situation from a positive angle, expats can create the conditions for moving beyond gut reactions of judgment to humble learning and resilience. The Framing Effect reminds us that much of what we feel in response to our environment is shaped by our perceptions, which we can control and adapt to better align with our new cultural surroundings.
For expats in challenging or new situations, reframing enables us to be humble, empathetic, balanced, and appreciate the differences of our host culture without being overwhelmed or developing Raging Expat Syndrome. So the next time you feel frustrated or out of place, try reframing the situation—doing so may reveal the beauty and value in the differences around you.
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