REFRAMING 1 Running Head: REFRAMING REFRAMING AND WISDOM WITHIN PROVERBS 1 ROBERT J. TRACY DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois NICHOLAS GRECO Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, Illinois ERIKA FELIX DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois DONALD F. KILBURG, III Eastern Washington University, Cheney, Washington First author s address: Department of Psychology DePaul University 2219 North Kenmore Chicago, Illinois 60614 1 The first author became interested in proverbs and reframing because of parents who used proverbs but operated from different frames of reference. Retrospectively, it seems that father might have done more negative reframing and mother more positive reframing. Different portions of this study were presented earlier at various conventions [1, 2, 3].
REFRAMING 2 ABSTRACT Many proverbs seem to convey wisdom because they help people to reframe life s predicaments. Positive reframes, such as Every cloud has a silver lining, often draw positive implications from adverse circumstances (cf. positive reappraisals, gain frames ). In contrast, negative reframes, such as All that glitters is not gold, provide helpful warnings about difficult situations, and therefore encourage proactive coping (cf. problem-focused coping ). This study examined the validity of the distinction between positive and negative reframes and whether the distinction applies to proverbs. Six judges categorized 199 proverbs as positive or negative reframes. Results showed that the positive reframes were rated by college students as more pleasant, conceptually simpler, and more familiar than the negative reframes. Further, proverbs that were composed by students were of higher quality when they were positive rather than negative reframes. On the other hand, positive and negative reframes occurred similarly often among the 199 proverbs, and did not differ consistently in rated truth, rated imagery arousal, or reading grade level. We concluded that many proverbs can be regarded as positive or negative reframes, which constitute basic thinking strategies that help people cope with life s challenges.
REFRAMING 3 Proverbs, such as, Every cloud has a silver lining, are brief pithy sayings in frequent and widespread use that express a basic truth or practical precept [4, cf. 5, p. 134]. Proverbs typically use easily understood concepts, perhaps evoking imagery, to engender abstract meanings that are applicable to many situations [6, p. 130]. They are pervasive in everyday communication and in the media, and pertain to such varied topics as love, friendship, work, death, and wise conduct [5, p. 135]. Thousands of proverbs have been identified in American speech [7] and print [8]. There are also similar kinds of proverbs in different languages [5]. Proverbs are often used as informal summaries of notable events or to justify a decision. A stock market commentator might use, Every cloud has a silver lining, or All that glitters is not gold to metaphorically summarize a surprising change in a stock s value. Proverbs are also used with the intent of transforming someone, by suggesting an improved way of thinking or behaving [6]. We suggest that many proverbs are popular because they help people to reframe and adjust to difficult situations and then elegantly express those reframes to others. Proverbs are thus dressed-up reframes that apply to situations that can be reframed positively in terms of benefits (gains) or negatively in terms of costs (losses). Positive reframes often suggest positive implications from adverse circumstances, e.g., Every cloud has a silver lining. Negative reframes typically provide helpful warnings about problematic situations, e.g., All that glitters is not gold. Our goal in this paper is to provide evidence that positive and negative reframes are separate thought strategies embodied within proverbs that help people cope with life s challenges. We begin the paper by considering the
REFRAMING 4 importance of reframing and by hypothesizing that positive reframes should be more pleasant and simple than negative reframes, and therefore also of higher quality. In Phase 1 of the empirical results, we explain how judges categorized 199 proverbs as positive or negative reframes. In Phase 2, students who were unaware of how the proverbs had been categorized, rated the proverbs in terms of Pleasantness, Simplicity, Truth, Familiarity, and Imagery. We also calculated the reading grade level for each proverb. These variables were used to test hypotheses pertaining to differences between positive and negative reframes, specifically that positive reframes would be more pleasant and simple than negative reframes. In Phase 3, we evaluated the quality of proverbs composed by students in order to test whether proverbs they intended as positive reframes would be higher in quality than those intended as negative reframes. Positive Reframing A proverb such as Every cloud has a silver lining, could be called a positive reframe because it redirects a person s attention towards a positive aspect or implication of some situation. This proverb...suggests that every difficult or depressing circumstance has some hidden consolation, some opportunity, and thus there is always reason to hope. [9, p. 325]. The term, positive reframe, which others have termed positive reappraisal [10], implies a thought transition whereby a situation is evaluated in an improved way, as summarized graphically in the left side of Figure 1, that points in the positive (improved) direction. The right side of Figure 1 will be discussed later in the paper. Not all positive reframes begin negatively and end positively. They may begin negatively and end less negatively,
REFRAMING 5 as in Better late than never; or they may begin positively and transition to an additional positive state, as in One good turn deserves another. Because all such transformations represent gains, the term gain frame, used in the decisionmaking literature [11], appears to be synonymous with positive reframe. Implicit in Figure 1 is the suggestion that positive reframes can be operationalized using subjective ratings of affect, similar to those recommended to track therapeutic outcomes [12]. Insert Figure 1 here Positive reframes are more than simply positive statements or opinions. Consider, Life is Beautiful [13], the title of a recent movie. This statement by itself is not a reframe because it states an opinion, a static conclusion with no clear transition. However, the movie does contain many reframes, in that it depicts a man in a concentration camp who positively reinterprets threatening experiences for his son. The distinction between reframes and conclusions, although sometimes subtle, is important because coping with problems often requires mental adjustment rather than set responding. Conclusions are relatively fixed thoughts, hence less alterable and less controllable than reframes [cf. 14, pp. 12-13]. We contend that many proverbs are reframes (and vice versa). Researchers who study reframing frequently use familiar proverbs to illustrate reframing, which is a less familiar concept. However, the overlap of proverbs and reframes is not complete. We would not consider a proverb to be a reframe if it suggests a conclusion or admonition without a clear thought transition. Alternatively, reframes
REFRAMING 6 are unlikely to be regarded as proverbs if they are complex or contain few of the literary characteristics that typically mark proverbs, e.g., brevity, meter, rhyme, alliteration, assonance, personification, paradox [see 5]. In this study we use reframing as a basis for categorizing proverbs, which apparently has not been suggested previously. Various alternative categorization schemes have been suggested [see 6, Ch. 1, also pp. 137-145], but only one appears to have been examined empirically [15]. Unfortunately that study was limited because it considered only 17 participants and 11 proverbs. Positive Reframes which are not Proverbs In this section we illustrate the scope and significance of reframing by relating it to the broader psychological literature. Because positive reframing can reduce stress by altering how stressors are perceived, reframing can help people cope with irreversible situations [16, p. 125]. For example, many cemetery gravestones show that death has been reframed as resting in peace 2. Thus, positive reframing can be a coping process of last resort, such as permitting a person to come to terms with an irreversible or inescapable situation, such as facing Lou Gehrig's disease [17], providing care for Alzheimer s patients [18, 19], or adjusting to childhood sexual abuse by becoming more knowledgeable and aware and therefore better able to guard against future occurrences [20]. Consider also a 2 A comedian inscribed on his gravestone, See, I told you I was sick, which might be interpreted as a type of positive reframe using humor. Although humor can help people to cope, it may not appear in proverbs, possibly because the proverbial advice might be taken less seriously.
REFRAMING 7 study showing that some men infected with HIV were able to find positive meaning from the death of a friend with AIDS [21]. Positive meanings included a greater appreciation of the friend, an enhanced sense of living in the present, a perception of life as fragile and precious, and a commitment to enjoying life. Men who found some positive meaning had improved immune system functioning and lower mortality rates than other HIV-infected men who did not positively reframe a friend s death. Examples of positive reframing are common when people cope with disaster, such as the 9/11/2001 destruction of the World Trade Center in New York and the damage to the Pentagon. The idea behind positive reframing is clearly not to celebrate every misfortune (as Pollyanna did [22]), but rather to identify positive implications whenever misfortune occurs in order to blunt the impact. The studies reviewed above illustrate situations where positive reframing could occur; but they do not show that reframing causes better coping, as participants were not randomly assigned to different conditions. This limitation was addressed in a study dealing with depression [23]. The authors randomly assigned mildly depressed college students to one of three conditions who heard differing interpretations from counselors about their depressive symptoms. Students assigned to the positive connotation (positive reframing) condition would hear the following interpretation if they expressed the depressive symptom of wanting to be alone: "Being alone shows great tolerance for solitude and basic self-satisfaction." Students assigned to the negative connotation condition would hear, "Being alone indicates avoidance and rejection of others." The control condition received no counseling and no interpretations. Results showed that positive connotations
REFRAMING 8 produced significantly greater long-term reduction in depression than the other conditions after six-weeks as measured by the Beck Depression Inventory. Because positive reframing can alleviate discomfort and engender hopefulness, it is commonly used by psychotherapists, particularly by family and systems theorists [e.g., 24, 25, 26]. Positive reframing seems equivalent to positive appraisal or reappraisal wherein personal adjustment is improved through perceiving benefits that can be derived from an aversive event [10, pp. 127-128]. There is considerable empirical support for the usefulness of positive appraisal, but more research is needed [10]. Rarely have studies differentiated the specific positive aspects of situations that people identify during positive reappraisal. Also, clarification is needed on whether positive appraisal is more helpful than other ways by which people assign meaning to life experiences [10]. Negative reframing In addition to positive reframes, there are negative reframes, as illustrated by the proverb, All that glitters is not gold. We define negative reframes as negative thought transitions that relate to some problem which might be corrected or avoided. They are commonly expressed in proverbs as helpful warnings or admonitions about situations that could get worse (cf. loss frames ). Such proverbs often contain cautionary terminology such as should, or don t, as in Don't count your chickens before they hatch, which warns about early expectations or premature planning. Whereas positive reframes are often used following a
stressor, negative reframes are typically designed to precede and preempt stressors. REFRAMING 9 Negative reframes seem to underlie problem-focused coping in which direct action is taken to improve a situation [14], or proactive coping in which people attempt to offset or eliminate potential stressors before they can develop, e.g., (academic planning, insurance purchases, shopping with a list, keeping a checkbook, maintaining a car, and using a calendar) [27]. Aspinwall and Taylor [27] differentiate proactive coping which involves a general preparedness that does not pertain to any particular stressor from anticipatory coping which involves preparation for a particular stressor whose occurrence is likely (e.g., taking an umbrella because rain is forecasted). They summarize proactive and anticipatory coping in terms of the proverb, A stitch in time saves nine. In this paper, we use negative reframing to refer to thought transitions that are negative then positive, which presumably are necessary precursors to these three types of coping. It seems likely that children are exposed to negative reframing around two years of age when they begin to understand language and become mobile enough to endanger themselves or parental possessions. Children may learn the rules governing negative behaviors before those for positive behaviors [28, p. 70]. Negative reframes are not merely negative statements. Some students have mistakenly used life sucks as a negative reframe. This statement is a conclusion, a static opinion not clearly containing a thought transition. Further, the goal behind this statement is not clearly helpful. The eventual goal of a negative reframe, after problem correction, should be positive; otherwise negative reframing is pointless.
REFRAMING 10 Although some people may derive some satisfaction from declaring that life sucks, where does that conclusion lead? Reframing (either negative or positive) should involve a reinterpretation whose ultimate goal is to correct or improve. We thus summarize negative reframing diagrammatically by an arrow that initially moves negatively but ends more positively than where it began. See the right side of Figure 1. Negative Versus Positive Reframes Thus, positive reframes involve a thought transition to a positive, improved way of thinking. Negative reframes also involve an improved thought transition, but only after transitioning to a negative, correctable issue. We hypothesize that negative reframes involve more negativity than positive reframes because the person must accept or initiate negative thoughts not previously considered. We also hypothesize that negative reframes are more informationally complex than positive reframes because they require more complicated thought transitioning involving a negative thought that ends beneficially, i.e., the reversal of thought pattern depicted in Figure 1. But an additional issue must be considered. Negative reframes could be complex partly due to their inherent negativity, a negativity-complexity hypothesis. There is evidence that negative stimuli produce more complex cognitive activity than positive stimuli even when their informational value is equivalent [28, see 29 for a review]. Such activity seems related to the way organisms typically adapt to negative stimuli and stress, with...physiological arousal, attentional engulfment, and expenditure of cognitive and social resources... [27, p. 422, 28].
In our data analyses below, we will differentiate between the informational complexity and negativity-complexity hypotheses. REFRAMING 11 There are some important consequences that may derive from the greater negativity and complexity inherent in negative reframes compared with positive reframes. Negative reframes should fail in ways that positive reframes do not. For example, the negativity in negative reframes can produce an unintended overresponse. A boy playing on his skateboard, fell and was badly scraped. While tending his wounds, his mother said, Thank God this is all that happened. It could have been worse. Rather than being comforted, later that night he had nightmares about playing on his skateboard and being hit by a truck [example provided by D. Bolton, personal communication, October, 1997]. The mother had used a portion of a negative reframe (noting that matters could have been worse), but without an effective positive resolution. Negative reframes can also fail if recipients avoid or misunderstand the negative (uncomfortable) phase, or if the final positive phase seems unattainable. That is, people may forgo active coping efforts if they are unconvinced that there is a threat or that they can effectively deal with it [27, p. 426]. Successful negative reframing may involve a cost-benefit comparison wherein the eventual positive benefit must appear to be worth the hardships of the negative phase [cf. 30, 31]. Such complexities may explain why some people can fail to heed negatively reframed advice; they may perceive warnings to be more negative or punishing than helpful. They also may deny that the warning applies to them. The right side of Figure 1 suggests that negative reframing will be more feasible when people perceive the dip in the curve to be small relative to benefits of
REFRAMING 12 the end result. Thus persuading someone to take an umbrella when it is raining outside should be easier than persuading a student to plan and follow a study schedule. Compared to positive reframes, the greater negativity and complexity of negative reframes also suggests that they will be generally of lower quality, a prediction that we test below in Phase 3. Other Examples of Negative Reframes The term negative reframing does not appear to have been used in the psychological literature, but the concept of negative reframing occurs often. The synonymous term loss framing, is found in the decision-making literature but that literature does often seem to reference other literatures that pertain to helpful warnings. We use negative reframing in this article to invite comparisons with positive reframing and because both concepts seem applicable to proverbs. The decision-making literature suggests that loss-framed messages (negative reframes) may have more impact than gain-framed messages (positive reframes) [11]. For example, it has been reported that loss framing can persuade women to perform breast self-examinations for early cancer detection. However, loss-framed messages have not been as effective in persuading men to perform testicular selfexaminations for early cancer detection [32], possibly because men and women have different ways of conceptualizing a health threat [cf. 11]. Research on framing effects is notable because such effects have been demonstrated within brief laboratory sessions, and they occur in many decision situations, including disease detection and prevention, romantic relationships and social dilemmas, mediation and negotiation, consumer decision-making, and ethical decision-making.
REFRAMING 13 Either Reframes Some proverbs do not fit neatly into the separate categories of positive or negative reframes. These might be called either reframes because they seem to involve either positive or negative thought transitions, depending on the situational context. For example, Birds of a feather flock together might apply to situations in which either good birds flock together (a positive reframe) or bad birds flock together (a negative reframe). There were several such proverbs that seem ambiguously related to situational contexts, e.g., Like father, like son, History repeats itself. All such proverbs allow for multiple interpretations, so that without a situational context, it is difficult to predict how people might interpret them. Thus, we will distinguish such either reframes from those proverbs more easily categorized as positive or negative reframes. Summary In sum, reframing is appropriate when a problem is not immediately solvable (positive reframing) or when a heeded warning can improve a situation (negative reframing). Both reframing strategies deal with negative aspects of a situation, but because the final goal of thought transitioning is to improve a person s situation, they both can be ultimately optimistic and beneficial in nature. Thus positive and negative reframing strategies seem compatible with the trait of dispositional optimism [33], a link that we will consider further in the discussion section. Rather than being antagonistic strategies, positive and negative reframing can compliment one another. Consider creativity. Positive reframing may enable creative people to
REFRAMING 14 withstand discouragement [cf. 34, Ch. 8]. Failures are common in creative work because they indicate gaps or flaws in understanding [35]. It can be helpful to positively reframe demands, obstacles, or failures as opportunities or as useful learning experiences [36]. Negative reframing also seems essential in creativity because there is a need to search out and correct weaknesses in project design. Soichiro Honda, founder of the Honda Motor Company emphasized that effective research involved a succession of failures and repeated introspections wherein one avoided repeating mistakes due to the same reasons [37, p. A4]. To him, innovative success results from the 1% of one s work resulting from the other 99% called failure. Perhaps, Hope for the best, prepare for the worst applies. In general, positive appraisal, along with direct problem solving efforts, are two strategies most consistently associated with satisfactory problem solving [38, p. 90]. We suggest that positive and negative reframing, appropriately balanced, are thought transitions useful in coping with all problematic situations. Truth of Proverbs and Reframes Simply telling a depressed person that every cloud has a silver lining, will be unsuccessful if the person regards the proverb as a cliché and inadequate for his or her (more complicated) situation. A stock phrase can dismiss or trivialize a problem, or if accepted, limit consideration of potentially more beneficial solutions. Proverb theorists acknowledge that some proverbs can be generally more true than others. Thus, All that glitters is not gold appears self-evident, but Spare the rod and spoil the child is no longer recommended as a child-rearing practice by psychologists [5,
REFRAMING 15 p. 135]. Proverbs that people rate as more true tend to be rated higher in quality and to be proverbs that people would rather keep than discard [39]. Reframe theorists consider truth in terms of whether the reframe was successful for the person receiving the reframe. A successful reframe occurs when the person s conceptual or emotional viewpoint of a situation is altered by placing the situation in another frame which fits the facts better, thereby positively changing its meaning [cf. 40]. In sum, it seems that truth depends on the goodness of fit between the reframe (or proverb), the person, and the situation where the reframe is applied. Our approach taken in this study, is to have participants rate the truth of each proverb based on their experience, which presumably would reflect the goodness of fit. Although proverbial truth is important to assess, our assumption that positive and negative reframes are both valid types of proverbs does not lead us to predict that they would necessarily differ in terms of truth. Rationale Positive and negative reframes within proverbs seem to represent different ways of improving people s affect and adjustment in dealing with problematic situations. We tested these ideas in three phases. Phase 1 presents evidence that positive and negative reframes are embodied in many proverbs. Judges categorized the proverbs according to the type of reframe (positive, negative, either, or not a reframe). We expected that negative reframes would be less numerous than positive reframes, given that negative reframes contain more negativity and are more informationally complex. Either reframes should be relatively rare due to their greater ambiguity and complexity. Thus Phase 1 compared the relative
REFRAMING 16 frequencies of different types of reframes within proverbs. In Phase 2 we attempt to show that proverbs categorized as positive reframes are interpreted differently from those categorized as negative reframes. Students who were unaware of the reframe category of the proverbs rated them in terms of pleasantness, simplicity, truth, familiarity, and imagery. We then analyzed each of these measures individually (in addition to reading grade level calculated for each proverb), while using the remaining measures as covariates, to test whether positive reframes would be rated higher on each measure than negative reframes. We expected positive reframes to be more pleasant and simple than negative reframes. We did not have advanced expectations regarding the other variables, truth, familiarity and imagery. Either reframes were not examined in Phase 2, because they would be ambiguous in a ratings task. In Phase 3, we compared the quality of reframes that college students composed. If positive reframes are indeed more pleasant and simple, then positive reframes should be of higher quality than negative reframes. We earlier argued that because of their greater negativity and complexity, negative reframes should fail in ways that positive reframes would not. PHASE 1: CATEGORIZING PROVERBS AS REFRAMES Method Proverbs used in this Study We obtained 203 familiar proverbs from Higbee and Millard [41], who also provided familiarity and visual imagery ratings for each proverb. They acquired the proverbs in an informal, unsystematic manner [K. Higbee, Personal communication,
REFRAMING 17 April 6, 2000]. We used these proverbs because they seemed sufficiently familiar that our judges should be able to categorize them as positive or negative reframes. Such categorization allowed us to compare positive and negative reframes in Phase 2 using familiarity and visual imagery ratings collected by Higbee and Millard, and pleasantness, simplicity, and truth ratings collected by the present authors. We calculated readability statistics for each proverb using Corel WordPerfect and Microsoft Word software packages. The estimate of Flesch-Kincaid reading grade level was different for WordPerfect (M = 3.7, Range = 0.1 to 13.1) and Word (M = 2.4, Range = 0.0 to 12.0), due in part to different ways of defining words. We used the mean of these two grade levels later in the paper. Because these proverbs employ simple language, they are teachable to children, which likely has contributed to the proverbs being passed down from generation to generation. For example, Don t count your chickens before they hatch, derives from Aesop s fables, 485-426 B.C.E. [9]. Thus insights of one century can become accepted wisdom in later centuries. Judges Six judges, the first author, a psychology professor, and five psychology graduate students, categorized the proverbs as to the type of reframe. Judges first read an explanation of the differences between positive, negative, and either reframes, using illustrative proverbs from Higbee and Millard [41]. Except for the first author, judges were unaware of the hypotheses. The results presented below are unchanged if the first author s data are excluded.
REFRAMING 18 Proverb Presentation Each judge read a different, randomly ordered listing of the proverbs. Each proverb was unaccompanied by any situational context, thereby requiring judges to instantiate (think of a specific situation) for each proverb as they most typically would. Judges rated 199 of Higbee and Millard s 203 proverbs. Three proverbs used as illustrations in the instructions were excluded, along with a potentially offensive proverb (Beware of Greeks bearing gifts). Results Inter-judge Reliabilities Inter-judge reliabilities were calculated by comparing each of the six judges against the other judges in a pair-wise fashion using chi-square analyses. Any proverb that was unfamiliar to either of the two judges being compared, was not included in that analysis. Judges showed high agreement in classifying proverbs as negative, positive, either reframes, or not a reframe. Each chi-square was significant, χ 2 (9), 165 < N < 193, p <.006, with the median contingency coefficient =.45). Table 1 provides an alternative an alternative summary of how well judges agreed in assigning proverbs to reframe categories. Table columns show the possible reframe categories, and the rows show the number of judges who agreed in how they categorized the proverbs. As shown, 66 proverbs were categorized as
REFRAMING 19 negative reframes, 56 as positive reframes, and 30 as either reframes, for a total of 152 or 76% of all proverbs. The table also shows that the categorization of proverbs as reframes was not clear-cut. Agreement between judges could range from high, to medium, to low. We defined high agreement between judges as those proverbs for which five or six of the judges agreed on the reframe category. High agreement represents 46 proverbs or 23% of the 199 proverbs. We defined medium agreement as those proverbs for which four judges agreed on the reframe category, representing 50 or 25% of the proverbs. Finally, low agreement constituted those proverbs for which two or three judges agreed on the reframe category, representing 56 or 28% of the proverbs. We are including low agreement proverbs, even though their categorization was less clear. The significant chi-square reliability data discussed above included all of the proverbs. Rather than discard data from a large number of low agreement proverbs, we considered them in Phase 2 analyses as one of the three levels of a factor called Levels of Agreement between Judges. An additional level for this factor permits a better test of whether differences between positive and negative reframes are general or whether they depend upon (interact with) the level of agreement between judges. Insert Table 1 here Other proverbs represented in the table could not be categorized as reframes. Five proverbs were categorized as not a reframe, and six were unfamiliar to some judges. Finally, there were 36 tie proverbs that were ambiguous because judges assigned them equally to multiple categories, either a two-way or three-way tie. For example, three judges categorized A drowning man will clutch at a straw as
REFRAMING 20 not a reframe while the other three judges categorized it as a negative reframe. Appendix A provides a complete list of the proverbs represented in Table 1 and how they were categorized. The statistical results cited next were based on all the negative, positive, or either reframes shown in Table 1 (N = 152. However, the outcomes are the same when the analyses exclude the low agreement proverbs). Our prediction that positive reframes would be more frequent than negative reframes was not supported. Rather, the trend was opposite with negative reframes (N=66) being nonsignificantly more numerous than positive reframes (N=56), by Goodness of fit χ 2 (1, N = 122) = 0.66, p >.05. However, as expected, either reframes were relatively infrequent (N=30) compared to the positive reframes (N=56), by Goodness of fit χ 2 (1, N = 86) = 7.27, p <.01. Discussion Negative Reframes as Warning Tools The evidence showed negative reframes to be at least as common as positive reframes. Why were negative reframes so common? Our best answer is that they are important in daily living. We speculated earlier that children may hear negative reframes as they acquire language and become capable of endangering household possessions or themselves. More generally, novices typically encounter difficult situations, which, we suspect would prompt helpful warnings and negatively reframed proverbs from advisors, including friends, mentors, teachers, and parents. Aspinwall and Taylor claim that proactive coping which we presume to indicate
REFRAMING 21 that negative reframing has occurred is an extremely valuable strategy. People make considerable efforts...to avoid, detect, or manage potential sources of stress in their environment... [27]. They further argue that proactive coping is exceedingly common in daily situations, but has been neglected in the coping literature, because successful proactive coping eliminates sources of stress in advance so that from outward appearances, nothing notable happened. Researchers interested in stress may conclude incorrectly that there is nothing to study. In summary, our position now is that negative reframing is more important and common than we had first supposed. The Role of Negativity Another possible reason for the commonness of negative reframes in our results is that negative reframes might have been highly noticeable to judges due to inherent negativity. We defined negativity as cautionary or negative terminology that included the following words: can t, cannot, don t, never, no, not, nothing, should, and shouldn t. Other negativity terminology included words such as: bad, bury, contempt, dangerous, dead, deceive, drowning, evil, fall, fire, fool, hang, hell, ill, kill, lost, misery, poison, pours, sink, spoil, thief, waste, weakest, and worst. Although some of these words are not necessarily negative (e.g., fall, hang, pours), they were negative within their respective proverbs. We compared positive and negative reframes to determine how often each contained negativity versus no negativity as defined above. Not surprisingly, negative reframes contained negativity more often than positive reframes, χ 2 (1, N = 122) = 36.1, p <.001, an obvious finding given that negative reframes provide warnings. Results also showed
REFRAMING 22 that 74% of the negative reframes contained negativity, whereas only 20% of the positive reframes contained negativity. Thus negativity, although associated with negative reframing, was not a perfect indicator of negative reframing. If negativity had been the sole criterion of negative versus positive reframing, 26% of negative reframes would have been missed. For example, Let sleeping dogs lie, clearly a helpful warning, contains no negativity but was consistently (five out of six judges) classified by judges as a negative reframe. Similarly, in 20% of the positive reframes, negativity was present, as in No news is good news, or You re never too old to learn. It seems clear that judges were correctly regarding these as positive reframes, as instructed. In summary, negativity is indeed a salient aspect of negative reframes, but the judges do not appear to have used negativity as the defining characteristic of negative reframes. Rather, as instructed they tended to regard negative reframes as helpful warnings about difficult situations. Low-agreement and Tied Reframes Why was there low agreement between judges for some of the proverbs? It is important to remember that judges categorized proverbs without being given any situational context that would clarify their meaning. Thus, different judges could instantiate a proverb quite differently, and thereby assign it to different reframe categories. Consider the negative reframe, Don t give up the ship (-1,-1,-1,1,1,unf). Three judges regarded this proverb as a negative reframe, apparently considering it a warning. Two judges regarded it as a positive reframe, presumably mindful of the advantage (hopefulness) associated with not giving up. The last judge was unfamiliar with it. That judges could instantiate a proverb differently also explains
REFRAMING 23 why many proverbs were tied with other proverbs in category assignment (see the Tie column in Table 1). Either Reframes The idea that proverbs can be instantiated in multiple ways is also applicable to either reframes. Note in Table 1 that most of the either reframes had low agreement between judges (only two or three judges agreeing). In contrast, negative and positive reframes had predominately moderate or high agreement between judges (four to six judges agreeing). We are not arguing here that these either proverbs are invalid, only that they are rendered more ambiguous when presented without a situational context as in this study. In typical usage, proverbs such as Birds of a feather flock together, are presented within a situational context which signals positive or negative reframing. Rather than think of these as either reframes, perhaps they could be more correctly interpreted as situationallydetermined reframes. In addition, there was one proverb which explicitly conveyed both positive and negative reframing, Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Perhaps this proverb is better interpreted as a both reframe than an either reframe. Nevertheless, all of the proverbs considered in this paragraph share the characteristic that they allow for multiple interpretations, so that without a situational context, it is difficult to predict how people might interpret them. Accordingly, because of this ambiguity, for methodological reasons we will not analyze them in Phase 2; instead we restrict our analysis to those proverbs more neatly categorized as positive or negative reframes.
REFRAMING 24 The above discussion indicates that proverbs are abstract heuristics that can be instantiated as relevant to multiple situations. This is one of reasons why proverb theorists argue that proverbs are quite powerful and useful. However, the abstract nature of proverbs has a down-side in that inconsistencies can arise in classifying proverbs, especially when there is no situational context to constrain their meaning. An important example involves the proverb, A stitch in time saves nine, applied by Aspinwall and Taylor to their review of proactive and anticipatory coping [27], whereby people forestall or minimize an adverse event. They used this proverb in a way similar to how we defined negative reframing. An inconsistency arises, however, because four out of six judges (1,1,1,1,0,unf) in our study rated this same proverb as a positive rather than a negative reframe. This inconsistency seems to have occurred because of the different ways that this proverb can be instantiated. The judges seemed to apply a stitch in time to a task that was successfully completed, thereby saving nine, a positive reframe in this instance. In contrast, Aspinwall and Taylor clearly use a stitch in time as a warning of about something that needs to be done in the future, a negative reframe. Thus, this proverb could be a positive or negative reframe depending on whether it refers to being positive about having completed a difficult task or whether it refers to a helpful warning about a necessary future task. Although the reader may regard this example as contradicting our distinction between positive and negative reframes, we disagree. It is generally accepted that proverbs can be instantiated in drastically different ways, e.g., people may accept a proverb and its opposite as true: Desires are nourished by delays, and Desires are
REFRAMING 25 starved by delays [39]. People appear not to follow the rules of formal logic when it comes to proverbs. Instead, most proverbs can be instantiated in more than one way, and people follow a logic of conversation [39] wherein they interpret proverbs by assigning the meaning that makes the proverb as sensible and informative as possible. Situational cues can guide this process as illustrated by Aspinwall and Taylor s use of a stitch in time, but situational cues were not presented to judges in our study. Thus, our interpretation is that A stitch in time saves nine is more likely to be evaluated as a positive reframe when people instantiate without situational cues being provided, which is the way that proverbs were presented to research participants in Phase 2. In general, reframing seems quite applicable to proverbs. Table 1 shows that only 2.5% (5) of the proverbs were categorized as not being reframes, apparently because judges considered them as conclusions or commands, e.g., Put on your thinking cap. Only 3% (6) of proverbs were unfamiliar to some of the judges and could not be classified. Positive and negative reframes comprised most of the proverbs: 43% percent (85) being identified by a majority of judges, and 19% (37) being less clearly identified (by two or three judges). The remaining 33% (66) of the proverbs in the table the either and tied proverbs also seem to involve reframing, but categorization is unclear largely due to the different ways that proverbs can be instantiated when presented without any clarifying context. Thus two major ideas emerge from these data. First, proverbs engender abstract meanings that are applicable to multiple situations [cf. 6, p. 130]. Second, the two
REFRAMING 26 main types of situations involve negative or positive reframing. Further evidence differentiating negative and positive reframes is presented in the following section. PHASE 2: COMPARING POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE REFRAMES ON VARIOUS RATINGS We expected positive reframes to be rated as more pleasant and simpler than negative reframes. We also examined students ratings of truth, familiarity, and imagery, as well as the Flesch-Kincaid reading level, to determine if any of these would differentiate positive from negative reframes. Each variable was examined while controlling for the other variables using covariance analyses. We did not analyze either reframes because they are ambiguous in a rating task. Familiarity and imagery ratings were obtained from Higbee and Millard [41], while pleasantness, simplicity, and truth ratings were collected as described below. The Flesch-Kincaid reading level variable was discussed above in the section on proverbs. Method Participants The proverbs were rated by 177 liberal arts and science students enrolled in introductory psychology at DePaul University. The students participated as a course requirement and signed up based on a description of the study and the time scheduled. Demographic information showed that 61% of the 177 students were female. Further, 47% were freshman, 28% sophomore, 18% junior, 6% senior, and
REFRAMING 27 1% graduate. They indicated their ethnic identity as: White (53%), Latino/Latina (16%), Asian (11%), and Black (10%), Pacific Islander (3%) Greek (2%), Middle Eastern (1%) Native American (1%), and Multinational (2%). Most students were between 18 and 23 years of age. Exploratory analyses revealed no significant differences in gender, year in school, or ethnic identity in terms of how students rated proverbs. In these analyses levels of variables with small N had to be excluded. Although many students indicated that their native language was other than English, virtually all indicated English as their current language, as would be expected given that they were all American university students. Fifty-nine students were randomly assigned to each of three conditions to rate proverbs in terms of either pleasantness, simplicity, truth. Within each rating condition, 30 students were randomly assigned to receive one of two sets of proverbs (Set 1) and 29 students were assigned to receive the other set (Set 2). The reason for dividing the proverbs into the two sets is explained next in the materials section. Materials Each student rated only one-half of the 199 proverbs in order to avoid a long session that might contribute to student fatigue or carelessness. We randomly divided the proverbs into two sets with 100 proverbs assigned to Set 1 and 99 proverbs to Set 2. Within each set we formed ten different random orders for purposes of counterbalancing.
REFRAMING 28 On the first page of a booklet they received, students indicated the demographic information summarized above. Printed instructions explained that the study investigated why famous proverbs or sayings endure. Similar instructions were used, modified appropriately for students doing pleasantness, simplicity, and truth ratings. For example, for students doing simplicity ratings the following instructions were presented at the top of each page listing the proverbs. Please rate how simple or complex each saying is based on your experience. A saying may be "Extremely Simple," Very Simple," "Somewhat Simple," "Neutral," Somewhat Complex," "Very Complex," and "Extremely Complex." If you are unfamiliar with any saying, please check the "Unfamiliar" box. Then go on to the next saying, working at your own pace. Please ignore the number next to each saying; it is for identification purposes only. The goal was to use the student ratings to measure the simplicity of each proverb. The ratings were converted to a seven-point scale ranging from extremely complex (1) to extremely simple (7). The mean of students simplicity ratings for each proverb defined the simplicity value of that proverb. In a similar fashion, the pleasantness and the truth of each proverb were calculated. Specifically, we calculated the mean of students pleasantness ratings, which ranged from extremely unpleasant (1) to extremely pleasant (7), and the mean of students truth ratings, which ranged from extremely false (1) to extremely true (7). This same approach was used earlier by Higbee and Millard s
REFRAMING 29 [41] to measure the familiarity or the imagery of each proverb. In their study, 50 undergraduate psychology students rated the familiarity of each proverb, which ranged from never heard or read (1) to heard or read many times (7). Fifty-one other students rated the visual imagery of each proverb, which ranged from arouse visual images with the greatest difficulty or not at all (1) to arouse visual images most readily (7). Design The data were analyzed using as dependent variables the Pleasantness, Simplicity, Truth, Familiarity, and Imagery ratings, and the Flesch-Kincaid reading grade level for each proverb. Thus, in the following analyses we are examining characteristics of proverbs rather than performance of participants. Each statistical analysis examined three independent variables: Reframe (positive or negative), Agreement Between Judges (low, medium, high), and Proverb Set (Set 1 or Set 2). The Proverb Set variable was defined above in the materials section. The Reframe variable was defined in Table 1, in which 122 proverbs were categorized as negative reframes or positive reframes, 66 and 56 proverbs, respectively. Agreement Between Judges (low, medium, or high) was also defined based on information in Table 1. These agreement levels tended to equalize the number of proverbs in different cells of the design, 37, 43, and 42, respectively. Results
REFRAMING 30 Reliability and Descriptive Statistics The reliability of the Familiarity and Imagery values of the proverbs had been established earlier by Higbee and Millard. We calculated reliability of the Pleasantness, Simplicity, and Truth values by randomly dividing students into two groups and determining if the resulting Pleasantness, Simplicity, and Truth values of the proverbs were consistent for the two groups. This procedure was followed separately for the proverbs in Set 1 and Set 2. The correlations indicated acceptable reliability levels, with correlations ranging from r(97) =.42, p <.001 to r(98) =.78, p <.001. Table 2 shows the number of proverbs in each condition, along with descriptive statistics for each measure. An examination of the distributions of variables showed that they were generally symmetrical with medians around 4 or 5 on a seven-point scale. The distributions for the Flesch-Kincaid grade level had medians around 2.3 to 3.1 with some extreme scores, causing them to be positively skewed. A number of the proverbs had near-zero grade levels. Insert Table 2 here Intercorrelations among Measures The intercorrelations among measures for all 122 proverbs are shown in Table 3. Note especially the significant correlation between Pleasantness and Simplicity, r =.38, which means that unpleasantness and complexity (the opposite ends of the two scales) correlate.38. This result supports the hypothesis that negative (or unpleasant) information can be more complex than positive
REFRAMING 31 information. This and the other correlations among measures in Table 3 were considered in the following statistical analyses. Insert Table 3 here Multivariate Analyses A multivariate analysis of variance was performed using the dependent variables shown in Table 3. We tested for an overall expected difference between positive and negative reframes, also controlling for agreement between judges and set. Results showed that positive reframes were higher on the combined measures than negative reframes, Wilk's = 0.51, F(6,105) = 16.9, p < 0.001. These results are illustrated in Figure 2. There was also a significant effect due to Agreement between Judges, Wilk's = 0.80, F(12,210) = 2.09, p < 0.025. No other results reached significance. Thus positive reframes were consistently higher than negative reframes, a result that is general across different levels of agreement between judges and sets of proverbs. In addition, a binary logistic regression analysis was used to predict Reframe (positive or negative) as a function of all the variables. Compared to negative reframes, positive reframes were simpler (z = 2.35, p <.025), more pleasant (z = 5.39, p <.001), more familiar (z = 2.22, p <.05); and marginally more true (z = 1.85, p <.07). Imagery and Flesch-Kincaid reading grade level did not approach significance, nor did the Agreement and Set factors. Insert Figure 2 here