new frontiers in cognitive science:

New Frontiers in Cognitive Science:

Powerful Findings and Implications for Communicating about

Human Services Policy Institute for Governors’ Human Services Advisors

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices

Friday, July 10, 2015Annapolis, MD

Karen Heller Key, Presenter

2015 • Heller Key Management Consulting • www.hellerkey.com

“We have learned more about the thinking brain in the last 10-15 years than in all of human history.”

Professor Michio Kaku

Author, The Future of the Mind:

The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind2015 • Heller Key Management Consulting • www.hellerkey.com

Brain imaging gives us the hope of opening up the black box.

Brian Knutson

Professor of Neuroscience and PsychologyStanford University

We’ve long known that what goes on inside the brain holds clues to how humans make decisions, but until recently we could only try to infer what was going on in there.


What we are learning from neuroscience research has powerful implications for our work.

Emerging findings from brain science and from applied social science research are changing our understanding of how

communications influences thinking and action.


HOW THE BRAIN “MAKES MEANING” OF INCOMING COMMUNICATIONS

• What we are “speaking “into” when we talk about human nature, human potential, and human services

• How the ways we talk — about our clients, our organizations, our work, our practices, our communities —can inadvertently reinforce innaccurate understandings orembed new, productive ways of thinking


What we think is on the receiving end when we share an idea or concept

vs.

What we’re actually speaking “into”

© 2015 • Heller Key Management Consulting • www.hellerkey.com

The brain’s response to messages is mediated by what we’ve already heard.

What’s “in there?”

Cultural or ‘simplifying models’ that make it easier for us to think about incoming information, made up of:

Values that Americans hold deeply“Facts”Metaphors – like, for example. old sayings, truisms

:

© 2015 • Heller Key Management Consulting • www.hellerkey.com

The more often something is repeated, the deeper the “groove” it leaves in the brain. New messages tend to slide into the deeper grooves.

Information “feels” more true the second time you hear it, and more and more true each subsequent time.

Debunking a ‘myth’ by restating it as ‘not true’ slides into the groove of the myth itself. In other words, “AIDS cannot be caught from a door knob” lands as “AIDS can be caught from a door knob.”

Don’t debunk misinformation – provide new, correct information and repeat it –create a new groove, and deepen it

Know what’s already “in there” – grooves where your communication may land© 2015 • Heller Key Management Consulting • www.hellerkey.com

Common – dominant – American metaphors:

The Little Engine that CouldPulling yourself up by your bootstraps

Making lemonade out of lemons

Strongly held American Values:Opportunity

Fairness across placesAmerican Exceptionalism (we are the best nation in the world)

Rugged individualism


Some “facts” that have taken hold through repetition:

Smoking causes cancerVaccines cause autism

Mass incarceration is costly and disproportionate in its impact


Knowing how the brain makes meaning of incoming communications requires us to learn how to communicate using effective (tested),

deeply- held values and metaphors that make it possible for new facts and information to land

and to be believed.

This is about our audiences — those we communicate with — and it’s about us and our

own thinking.2015 • Heller Key Management Consulting • www.hellerkey.com

.

When we talk about human services, providing supports

and services to vulnerable people, it lands in…

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!

I pulled myself up by my bootstraps – giving people help for more than a short term emergency makes them dependent

Remember the ‘good old days’ when people took care of each other?

Government is inept

These are the values, metaphors, ‘facts’ you don’t want to trigger


Everyone should have an equal chance no matter where they were born (aka fairness between places)

We support the ability of all people to realize their full potential as contributing members of the community (human potential)

There are common sense solutions that we know work (aka pragmatism)

We can prevent problems from getting worse and costing more by acting

early on (aka prevention)

Here’s some of ‘what’s in there’ that we DO want to trigger

And some tested metaphors we can consider using

The Prosperity GridConstructed Well Being

Metaphors are particularly important in helping People “see” the way systems and structures work


What does this research mean for shaping the way your constituents understand issues and solutions?


The leading organization conductingthis research on evidence-based policy communications for the nonprofit and public sectors is The FrameWorks Institute.

To read in depth about their research and recommendations on how Americans think about human services, government, budget and taxes and other policy issues, visit:

www.frameworksinstitute.org


http://www.frameworksinstitute.org

If you have questions or want to continue this conversation, please contact me at:

Karen [email protected]

www.hellerkey.com

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.hellerkey.com

new frontiers in cognitive science:

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