'Frame' by Rian Stone (review & editorial)
Frame shapes what you perceive and how you react to it
What is “Frame”?
In my role as a scientist, I’m often asked to review journal articles that propose a new “research framework” that doesn’t offer any new findings, per se, but instead proposes a new way of looking at existing data. A good research framework paper will propose new questions that are worthy of investigation, where to look for answers, and how to interpret those answers.
Most papers that I review which purport to describe a new research framework fail to do so and I think it’s because the scientists don’t really know what “frame” means. They use the term like it’s a catchall container for some interesting ideas they sort of thought up, but they don’t know what to call — and that’s not a framework.
A similar problem happens in conversations about relationships. For example, in There Are 3 Types of Relationships: In Which Are You? I described how to manage expectations in relationships that might help avoid misunderstandings and fostering resentments. I reasoned that “Only by knowing your relationship can you avoid the pain of overestimating your expectations of others.”
When conflict emerges in relationships — whether business or romantic — people who write and talk about relationship dynamics often use word “frame” to describe the origins of the conflict and approaches to its resolution. Men with a strong “frame” are typically admired as resolute and influential, good at avoiding or navigating conflicts, and generally perceived as getting more of what they want.
The problem is that this perception too often confuses “frame” as exercising power over others. Author Rian Stone, in his book called Praxeology, Vol.1: Frame (2022) debunks this dangerous misconception.
Frame is not exercising power over others.
Frame is about exercising power over oneself.
His book a collection of notes gathered from years of writing in online forums, interviewing and counseling men who feel powerless in their relationships, and connecting the literature in psychology and anthropology that relates to intersexual dynamics. My own hard copy is tagged with dozens of post-notes to facilitate my referral back to pearls of wisdom like these:
“Give without expectations. If you can’t give that way, then don’t give” (p.159).
“Why are women attracted to narcissists?” Because the narcissists are authentic (p.98).
“Leaders don’t need permission. They lead, period. Those that want to follow, follow. Those that don’t, don’t… . Thinking that people have to follow you so that you can lead is assbackwards.”
Stone’s book gives advice on how to build frame, how to think about frame, and what to do with frame once you’ve built it for yourself.
But he never describes what frame is.
When I called him up to ask about that, he acknowledged that frame is both what you perceive (e.g., a boundary) and how you react to those perceptions. But he also cautioned that “frame” is a metaphor, and that explicit definition of a metaphor is a good way to ruin it.
Nonetheless, there are two interpretations of the Frame metaphor that I think are worth further exploration, and may make a helpful preamble to Stone’s book.
Frame as boundary
The most salient of the “frame” metaphors is the picture frame (below). The purpose of the picture frame is both make a boundary around the picture, support the media on which the picture appears (like canvas, paper, or film), and enhance presentation or interpretation of the picture.
A picture frame tells the observer what to pay attention to, and what to ignore. It shapes the perception and interpretation of an experience.
In Boundaries vs Ultimatums I described the difficulty I had with understanding what boundaries are, where I wanted mine, and what to do when those boundaries are violated. Like many people, I failed to comprehend the difference between an ultimatum, which is about trying to control others’ behavior, and a boundary, which is all about controlling my own behavior. Stone’s writing has been helpful to me in this respect.
Ultimatums are easy. We learn at a young age to coerce, threaten and cajole.
Boundaries are hard, because too few of us have role models with a strong frame for establishing those boundaries. What behavior is in? What’s out? And how shall our perception and interpretation of other’s behaviors towards us be shaped?
These are questions of frame.
In science, the “frame as boundary” tells the scientist what’s in and what’s out of the experiment. It communicates some context and support for description of the results. That is, the choice of the frame changes the scientist’s interaction with and interpretation of the world.
The same is true for frame in relationships. It establishes what to ignore, what to pay attention to, and how to interpret what you observe. A strong, consistent frame will improve your relationships by communicating relationship expectations to the who you are likely to be compatible with. A weak, inconsistent frame will result in uncertainty, anxiety, and unproductive conflicts.
Frame as scaffold
Another way to think about the metaphor of a frame is to emphasize frame as structural support — e.g., a scaffold.
The “frame as scaffold” metaphor emphasizes the strength of convictions, the confidence in identity, and the response to changing circumstances that characterize a sense of self-esteem, sense of self efficacy, and status in society.
Scaffolding is a familiar concept in language instruction, where it is essential to scaffold knowledge of reading on top of knowledge of the alphabet, our some other antecedent knowledge. A similar type of knowledge instruction occurs in science when knowledge of physics (for example) scaffolds on top of knowledge of mathematics. For example, Newton had to first invent calculus before formulating Laws of Motion.
The frame as scaffold metaphor in relationships maps well onto Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Motivation. As I wrote in Self-Actual Engineering, Maslow provides a way of organizing aspects of our needs, desires, and identity that helps us understand how they are interrelated. Frame is a scaffold that connects aspects of our identity at the top with those at the bottom of the Hierarchy so that the meaning we construct from our experiences is built on a foundation of confidence in who we are and who we are still seeking to become.
Frameworks in science
These two dimensions of the metaphor — boundary and structure — apply to both science and relationships in ways that require more explanation. For example, a useful scientific framework must do the following:
What are the important questions?
The purpose of science is to create knowledge, and one of the ways to organize the pursuit of knowledge is to ask questions. Not all questions are scientific. Nor do all questions motivate the kind of knowledge the scientist cares about.
A good scientific framework explains which questions are in (and sometimes, which are out). It creates a boundary around the knowledge gap, and tells the scientist working within the framework what questions to pay attention to, and which to ignore.
Where to look for answers?
Science proceeds by organizing and structuring knowledge creation. It requires rules of evidence, and privileges some investigative methods over others. For example, one of the most important methods is construction of mathematical models for making “predictions” or formulating hypotheses that are then subjected to experimental, empirical, or phenomenological falsification.
In this sense, science does not prove Truth. It advances by discovering what is false, and what is useful. But science cannot make claims about Truth.
A good scientific framework will guide scientists towards the models, methods, datasets, and prior knowledge that will inform the answers to the questions that are “in” the frame.
How to interpret those answers?
Description requires interpretation. A disorganized set of observations is inadequate for falsification of hypotheses, because facts and observations do not interpret themselves. A useful scientific framework provides some guidance on how to interpret observations to construct more complex hypotheses, reach conclusions, or construct meaning.
Research in genotypes provides a recent example. To investigate the contribution of genetic variation in phenomenological variation (e.g., height) scientists compiled datasets comparing twins (identical and fraternal) and sibling pairs to test hypotheses. When they isolated the confounding factors like environmental exposures and diet, scientists presumed the variation in observable phenomenon could be attributed to genetic variations.
But a new study calls into question the interpretation of the all the data gathered by the old studies.
The questions haven’t changed.
The answers are found in the exact same types of datasets.
The only thing that has changed is the logic framework on which the meaning of those answers has been constructed.
In this case, interpretation of those studies was based on the fallacious assumption that genetic encoding and expression exists independent of the environment.
That is, phenomenon such as height could be subject to environmental variation, but the genetic pre-disposition to tall or short was considered immutable. Under this assumption, erroneous attribution could be ascribed to genome that is, in fact, due to the complex interaction of genes and environment.
“The methods developed so far really think about genetics and environment as separate and orthogonal, as independent factors. When in truth, they’re not independent. The environment has had a strong impact on the genetics, and it probably interacts with the genetics,” said Gil McVean, a statistical geneticist at the University of Oxford. “We don’t really do a good job of … understanding [that] interaction.”
— from ‘New Turmoil Over Predicting the Effects of Genes’ in Quantamagazine, by Jordana Cepelewicz (retrieved 19 Aug 2019)
Where statistical methods for interpreting complex datasets are constructed on a false logical framework, they fail to reveal the falsehood of erroneous hypotheses.
Frame in relationships
Stone emphasizes the importance of increasing value as a prerequisite to a strong frame. That is, because boundaries are about controlling our own behavior (what’s inside our picture?) and not others, we can only rely on others entering our frame when it’s worthwhile for them — i.e., when they’re getting something valuable from it. Offering value to others rewards them for respecting our boundaries.
So with the caveat that frame in relationships can only be as strong as value offered to others by the relationship, a good relationship frame must do the following:
Describe and communicate boundaries
What types of behaviors towards you are in? What’s out? And how will you communicate those boundaries once you know what you want them to be?
For example, as a child I was told what thoughts, feelings, and desires were “right.” It wasn’t until my 50’s that I realized how badly this had undermined my understanding of myself, and who I wanted to be. It was then that I decided I needed a boundary, and that I would communicate as “I will not stay in conversations with anyone who insists on telling me what I think, feel, or want.”
You can probably see this boundary would help protect me from the manipulations of other people who might argue “Well, you only did such-and-such because you want whats-in-whats!”
That kind of accusation puts me on the defensive. It invites me to defend what I do or do not want, and challenges me to explain and justify it.
I no longer engage in those conversations, because now I understand that I am the sole arbiter of my own thoughts, feelings, and desires.
Construct a meaningful identity
The fastest decisions are matters identity.
When you know who you are, many of the decisions that would otherwise require your analytic energy are made fast and without uncertainty.
The identity you construct shapes and supports your decisions, and helps sort out the people with whom you might have satisfying relationships. When you don’t have a consistent sense of who you are, what you value, what you want, the habits that embody those values and bring you closer to what you want, your energy is dissipated in chaos. It should be no surprise then, that when you don’t know who you are, people don’t trust you enough to be in a close relationship with you. As a consequence, they will distance themselves — at least until you get yourself figured out.