Don't Think of an Elephant!

Sanctity is a higher value than economic fairness. Talking about benefits is beside the point when the sanctity of marriage is in dispute. Talk sanctity first. With love and commitment, you have the very definition of the marital ideal—of what marriage is fundamentally about.

report by the 9/11 Commission.

if you are an unhappy, unfulfilledperson yourself, you are not going to want other people to be happier than you are

when you are arguing against the other side: Do not use their language.

When we negate a frame, we evoke the frame.

Framing is about getting language that fits your worldview. It is not just language. The ideas are primary—and the language carries those ideas, evokes those ideas

This gives us a basic principle of framing, for when you are arguing against the other side: Do not use their language. Their language picks out a frame—and it won’t be the frame you want.

When we negate a frame, we evoke the frame.

Reframing is changing the way the public sees the world. It is changing what counts as common sense. Because language activates frames, new language is required for new frames. Thinking differently requires speaking differently.

You can’t see or hear frames. They are part of what cognitive scientists call the “cognitive unconscious”—structures in our brains that we cannot consciously access, but know by their consequences: the way we reason and what counts as common sense. We also know frames through language. All words are defined relative to conceptual frames. When you hear a word, its frame (or collection of frames) is activated in your brain.