I wonder if “negligence spectrum” would be a good way to think about frame control.
Here is what I mean by negligence spectrum:
On one end of the spectrum is doing something (harmful) intentionally. For example, you’re walking down the street, see someone you don’t like, and intentionally bump into them, causing their coffee to spill.
On the other end is a genuine mistake. For example, you’re walking down the street, and for whatever reason you bump into someone accidentally, causing them to spill their coffee.
Then in the middle, there is negligence. For example, you’re walking down the street with your headphones on, staring into space, and losing focus.
There are of course varying degrees of negligence. For example, you’re walking down the middle of the street, er, sidewalk actually, with your headphones on, your head down staring at your phone watching a video, and you bump into someone. That would be more negligent than the bullet point above. And it would be even more negligent if you did the same thing on an electric scooter.
It seems to me like examples of (harmful) frame control would fit pretty nicely on this negligence spectrum, and that the more negligent it is, the more we should consider it bad and impose social punishments.
A different thing that is relevant is judging how impactful the frame controlling is. Ie. even if someone has nothing but good intent and isn’t even being negligent, if they are having a harmful impact on someone by controlling that person’s frame, that is also worth bringing up. “Hey, you probably don’t realize it but you are doing this thing that is having these negative consequences.”
We may be conceptualizing different things, but for me, “negligence” doesn’t quite fit the description. Some people do frame control unconsciously, but when I think of negligence, I picture people who should know, in theory, that what they’re doing is bad. They simply don’t bother to take precautions. With frame control, I’d say the people who do this either have absolutely no clue about what they’re doing (but they would be able to call it out in others because they’re massive hypocrites), or it feels a bit like a vice such as swearing annoyedly at people, where you sort of know that it’s bad for the person you’re swearing at, but you don’t care because it produces emotional relief or otherwise satisfies some emotional need. (In this case, I’d call it “semi-conscious” rather than unconscious.) Edit: Actually maybe this semi-conscious version is where I can see the parallels to negligence!
“Hey, you probably don’t realize it but you are doing this thing that is having these negative consequences.”
If this would actually work then the person you’re talking to probably wasn’t doing frame control all that much in the first place. (In which case it may be enough to just change the implicit frame to make them aware, and continue the discussion on the object level.)
I feel like it’s a major part of the phenotype that people who do this are experts at diversion and blame shifting.
(Of course, if admitting “Oh yeah, sorry, maybe I did some of that” becomes a get-out-of-jail card, then you should expect some clever manipulators – esp. the ones doing it consciously – to learn to make use of the excuse. But mostly, I think the people who use frame control have issues admitting that they did anything wrong, so if you were to confront them with that, it’ll get weird and uncomfortable.)
Hm, I didn’t realize it when I wrote the comment, but I think you are right about those two examples making up a large majority of the instances of frame control. Either it’s someone completely clueless, or it is a vice.
But 1) both of those seem like they fit somewhere on the negligence spectrum. Being clueless would put you on the “genuine mistake” end. And engaging in a vice feels to me like it is something like a 6⁄10, with 10⁄10 being as negligent as possible. I’m having trouble putting my finger on exactly why I consider it negligent, but I think you’re on to something with the semi-conscious stuff.
I guess this is more broad than the frame control discussion, but I’m very fond of this negligence spectrum idea. I feel like it is a pretty good tool in the discussion of how bad someone acted. I haven’t followed all of the comments here, and I know we’re probably trying to not make it a focal point, but I sense that at least part of the discussion here is about how badly people acted when they engaged in frame control.
If this would actually work then the person you’re talking to probably wasn’t doing frame control all that much in the first place. (In which case it may be enough to just change the implicit frame to make them aware, and continue the discussion on the object level.)
I feel like it’s a major part of the phenotype that people who do this are experts at diversion and blame shifting.
I have a much different impression here. My impression is that a large majority of frame control is of the first example you gave, where the person has no clue they’re doing it. 1) It feels like the sort of thing that takes a very large amount of skill. 2) I’m a pretty pessimistic person, but even I don’t model many people as being manipulative enough to doing much blame control intentionally or moderately negligently.
but I sense that at least part of the discussion here is about how badly people acted when they engaged in frame control.
Some other contributors have this angle, but the OP treats this question as unimportant at least for the level of diagnosing frame control:
Second point is a doozy, and it’s that you can’t look at intent when diagnosing frame control. As in, “what do they mean to do” should be held separate from “what are the effects of what they’re doing”—which I know is counter to almost every good lesson about engaging with people charitably. [...] This all might sound pretty dark, like I’m painting a reality where you might go around squinting at empathetic, open, caring people who have zero ill intent whatsoever and trying to figure out how they are ‘actually bad.’ And this is kind of true, but if only because “I am an empathetic, open, caring person with zero ill intent” is exactly the kind of defense actual frame-controllers inhabit. The vast majority of good people with good intent aren’t doing any significant kind of frame control; my point is just that “good person with good intent” should not be considered a sufficient defense if there seems to be other elements of frame control present.
I agree with the framing in the OP (except that I don’t think frame controllers are actually “empathic” – they seem like that and they might experience a lot of sympathy, but I don’t think they understand others’ situation and feel with them). I think the question of intent is also unimportant for diagnosing the badness of the effects of frame control. And at that point, it no longer seems helpful to ask “How bad is the frame controler?” (a more useful question might be “What are the chances they would change?”).
In my model, “frame control” in the sense of “the whole package described in the OP,” rather than “isolated instances of some of what’s described,” is really toxic and, unfortunately, rarely fixable. (I think isolated instances are not a big issue because if they’re truly isolated, they don’t lead to someone actually having their healthy frames eroded. If they’re isolated, they are also unlikely to come from systematically misaligned/exploitative cognition.) I see frame control as a byproduct of what I think of as interpersonally incorrigible cognition. The primary defining feature of this phenotype is that it’s exploitative, i.e., not on your side. When you give feedback to people who are like that, I suspect they’d often be too clueless and/or unwilling to improve genuinely – instead, they’ll try to fix appearances only. (Of course, we shouldn’t talk in absolute and there are probably ways to get people to change, but they probably involve the person hitting rock bottom and then do long therapy of some sort).
I find it a bit weird that when the topic is potential signs of abusive strategies, people’s first thought is often “What if we’re being unfair to the accused.” But it’s just as legitimate to think the thought, “There are often multiple victims suffering per one abuser, so this possibility is really serious and we should really get to the bottom of whether it’s true.”
I wonder if “negligence spectrum” would be a good way to think about frame control.
Here is what I mean by negligence spectrum:
On one end of the spectrum is doing something (harmful) intentionally. For example, you’re walking down the street, see someone you don’t like, and intentionally bump into them, causing their coffee to spill.
On the other end is a genuine mistake. For example, you’re walking down the street, and for whatever reason you bump into someone accidentally, causing them to spill their coffee.
Then in the middle, there is negligence. For example, you’re walking down the street with your headphones on, staring into space, and losing focus.
There are of course varying degrees of negligence. For example, you’re walking down the middle of the street, er, sidewalk actually, with your headphones on, your head down staring at your phone watching a video, and you bump into someone. That would be more negligent than the bullet point above. And it would be even more negligent if you did the same thing on an electric scooter.
It seems to me like examples of (harmful) frame control would fit pretty nicely on this negligence spectrum, and that the more negligent it is, the more we should consider it bad and impose social punishments.
A different thing that is relevant is judging how impactful the frame controlling is. Ie. even if someone has nothing but good intent and isn’t even being negligent, if they are having a harmful impact on someone by controlling that person’s frame, that is also worth bringing up. “Hey, you probably don’t realize it but you are doing this thing that is having these negative consequences.”
We may be conceptualizing different things, but for me, “negligence” doesn’t quite fit the description. Some people do frame control unconsciously, but when I think of negligence, I picture people who should know, in theory, that what they’re doing is bad. They simply don’t bother to take precautions. With frame control, I’d say the people who do this either have absolutely no clue about what they’re doing (but they would be able to call it out in others because they’re massive hypocrites), or it feels a bit like a vice such as swearing annoyedly at people, where you sort of know that it’s bad for the person you’re swearing at, but you don’t care because it produces emotional relief or otherwise satisfies some emotional need. (In this case, I’d call it “semi-conscious” rather than unconscious.)
Edit: Actually maybe this semi-conscious version is where I can see the parallels to negligence!
If this would actually work then the person you’re talking to probably wasn’t doing frame control all that much in the first place. (In which case it may be enough to just change the implicit frame to make them aware, and continue the discussion on the object level.)
I feel like it’s a major part of the phenotype that people who do this are experts at diversion and blame shifting.
(Of course, if admitting “Oh yeah, sorry, maybe I did some of that” becomes a get-out-of-jail card, then you should expect some clever manipulators – esp. the ones doing it consciously – to learn to make use of the excuse. But mostly, I think the people who use frame control have issues admitting that they did anything wrong, so if you were to confront them with that, it’ll get weird and uncomfortable.)
Hm, I didn’t realize it when I wrote the comment, but I think you are right about those two examples making up a large majority of the instances of frame control. Either it’s someone completely clueless, or it is a vice.
But 1) both of those seem like they fit somewhere on the negligence spectrum. Being clueless would put you on the “genuine mistake” end. And engaging in a vice feels to me like it is something like a 6⁄10, with 10⁄10 being as negligent as possible. I’m having trouble putting my finger on exactly why I consider it negligent, but I think you’re on to something with the semi-conscious stuff.
I guess this is more broad than the frame control discussion, but I’m very fond of this negligence spectrum idea. I feel like it is a pretty good tool in the discussion of how bad someone acted. I haven’t followed all of the comments here, and I know we’re probably trying to not make it a focal point, but I sense that at least part of the discussion here is about how badly people acted when they engaged in frame control.
I have a much different impression here. My impression is that a large majority of frame control is of the first example you gave, where the person has no clue they’re doing it. 1) It feels like the sort of thing that takes a very large amount of skill. 2) I’m a pretty pessimistic person, but even I don’t model many people as being manipulative enough to doing much blame control intentionally or moderately negligently.
Some other contributors have this angle, but the OP treats this question as unimportant at least for the level of diagnosing frame control:
I agree with the framing in the OP (except that I don’t think frame controllers are actually “empathic” – they seem like that and they might experience a lot of sympathy, but I don’t think they understand others’ situation and feel with them). I think the question of intent is also unimportant for diagnosing the badness of the effects of frame control. And at that point, it no longer seems helpful to ask “How bad is the frame controler?” (a more useful question might be “What are the chances they would change?”).
In my model, “frame control” in the sense of “the whole package described in the OP,” rather than “isolated instances of some of what’s described,” is really toxic and, unfortunately, rarely fixable. (I think isolated instances are not a big issue because if they’re truly isolated, they don’t lead to someone actually having their healthy frames eroded. If they’re isolated, they are also unlikely to come from systematically misaligned/exploitative cognition.) I see frame control as a byproduct of what I think of as interpersonally incorrigible cognition. The primary defining feature of this phenotype is that it’s exploitative, i.e., not on your side. When you give feedback to people who are like that, I suspect they’d often be too clueless and/or unwilling to improve genuinely – instead, they’ll try to fix appearances only. (Of course, we shouldn’t talk in absolute and there are probably ways to get people to change, but they probably involve the person hitting rock bottom and then do long therapy of some sort).
I find it a bit weird that when the topic is potential signs of abusive strategies, people’s first thought is often “What if we’re being unfair to the accused.” But it’s just as legitimate to think the thought, “There are often multiple victims suffering per one abuser, so this possibility is really serious and we should really get to the bottom of whether it’s true.”