THE TRUTH YOU SEE IS NOT THE WHOLE TRUTH
Throughout my academic career, I witnessed countless evaluations of students, teachers, and administrators. Over time, one thing particularly caught my attention: two people describing the same person could sometimes paint two completely different portraits.
One might say, “He is a very successful and hardworking student.” Another might say, “He doesn’t show much interest in his classes.” Both could be telling the truth. One was looking at the student’s achievements; the other was focusing on the few classes in which he seemed uninterested.
Over the years, I came to understand something more clearly:
“People often make judgments not only according to what they see, but according to the frame in which they place what they see.”
This happens not only in education but in almost every area of life. We can even see it in a supermarket.
Imagine two containers of yogurt with exactly the same amount of fat. One says, “90% fat-free,” while the other says, “Contains 10% fat.” Mathematically, both statements say exactly the same thing. Yet when you read the first one, your attention is drawn to the words “fat-free.” When you read the second, your attention goes to the word “fat.”
The first product will probably seem a little healthier to you. Yet the contents of the product have not changed. What has changed is where your attention has been directed.
In communication science, this is known as the framing effect. The words used to describe an event, what is emphasized, and what is left in the background all influence how we perceive that event.
This is also what Erving Goffman drew attention to years ago: people do not interpret events simply as they are; they make sense of them within the context in which those events are presented. We can easily see this in everyday life.
In a museum, we might stand for a long time looking at a painting that, at first glance, appears to be nothing more than a child’s drawing. Beside it are the artist’s name, the date of the work, and an explanation. If the same picture had been drawn by our five-year-old grandchild, we would look at it differently.
The picture has not changed.
The frame has.
When we enter a restaurant, we know how to behave. In a meeting, at home, or among friends, our behavior changes. This is partly why Goffman compared human interaction to a theater. We take on different roles on different stages of life.
That does not necessarily mean that we are being fake. The environment we are in influences which aspects of ourselves we bring to the foreground.
Framing affects not only our behavior but also our decisions. The work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky demonstrated that presenting the same option in different ways can change people’s preferences.
Advertisers know this well.
Politicians do too.
So does the media.
When you say, “Prices have been increased,” you create one impression. When you say, “A price adjustment has been made,” you create another.
“Failed” and “did not achieve the expected result” can also make us think about the same event in very different emotional terms.
Sometimes the event is the same.
What changes is the frame drawn around it.
I think there is a question we all need to ask ourselves:
“Am I really thinking freely, or am I thinking within the frame presented to me?”
This question has become even more important today.
Throughout the day, hundreds of headlines, images, and short videos pass across our phone screens. We watch a few seconds of a conversation, see a cropped photograph, or read only the headline of a news story and assume that we know the whole story.
Yet what we are shown is often not a lie.
It is simply one part of the truth.
That is why judging a person by a single behavior, a student by a single grade, or an administrator by a single decision can often mislead us.
What we see may be true, but it may not be the whole truth.
When you crop the edges of a photograph, the people in it do not change. But the story the photograph tells can change.
Life is somewhat like that.
So when reading a news story, evaluating a person, or making an important decision, it is worth asking ourselves:
“What am I not being shown?”
Perhaps mature thinking does not mean believing everything we see or doubting everything. Perhaps it means first becoming aware of how we are seeing it.
Because sometimes what misleads us is not false information.
It is true information presented within the wrong frame.
Sometimes the first step toward understanding reality is not to look more carefully at the picture, but to notice the frame around it.