Front Range Eco-Social Solutions: A Bioneers Network Event

“Mental frames” are a set of concepts and theoretical perspectives on how individuals, groups and societies organize, perceive and communicate about the world around them. An individual’s mental frame influences their perception — people with different frames will see the same facts differently. Increasingly, mental frames are constraining social communication and problem solving. Frames are filters to take in information selectively, process information in certain ways, discourage entire schools of thought, and discredit large swaths of the population. None of this serves us well, yet stepping outside our mental frames is hard. To do it successfully, we need to understand why we must, and have simple tools to support doing so. In this session, we explore several examples of where mental frames are constraining resilient action in Boulder and beyond, highlight ways that stepping out of those frames will support social change, and discuss simple tools to support opening ourselves to other viewpoints.