The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane

Episode 96 How Language Shapes Our Perceptions and Minds

• Fiona Kane • Season 1 • Episode 96

Share episode

Send us a text

The latest episode examines how the language we use can profoundly impact our perceptions, beliefs, and health. I discuss linguistic framing's role in media, politics, and personal health, emphasising the need for mindful communication. 

Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/

Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/

Sign up to receive our newsletter by clicking here.

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn

Credit for the music used in this podcast:

The Beat of Nature

Music by Olexy from Pixabay



Fiona Kane:

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast. I'm your host, Fiona Kane, and today I'm going to be talking about language. Again, I've talked about language a lot, but I'm going to be talking about it from a little bit of a different angle. So the language that we use and sort of the meanings of the words and how that affects us. So I'll probably link at the end in like the next on YouTube. Anyway, I'll link there. So if you're on YouTube it'll be easy to find. But if you just go through you'll find it as well as another video that I've done on language and I've done a few. So if you go through you will find them.

Fiona Kane:

But essentially, today what I'm talking about is I'm actually going to be referring to a study and this study is in the latest issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest. Who knew that there was an issue of that? But anyway, there is an issue of that and anyway, what they did is they did a comprehensive review of the framing effects of it's about linguistic framing. So about the way that we introduce language to someone, in the way we say something to affect how they respond to it, and I think this is a really interesting one, just in general from a society point of view, and obviously it has political you know it affects politics and that sort of thing, but also I think that these things do affect our health and well-being. So it's really important to understand how language affects us. So essentially they're talking about their deep concern about how linguistic control in popular media may affect our lives. And you know they said the author said we routinely use words to try and influence what other people are thinking, feeling and doing, and that's the thing we sort of use language to sort of, yeah, change someone's response to something. And so, instead of sitting here the example sorry, I'm reading through this for anyone who's watching, but it's kind of something that I have to read through part of and then I'll just stop reading and start just talking in general.

Fiona Kane:

But first I'll talk about the use of war metaphors, for example generates an increased sense of urgency when used to describe an issue. Generates an increased sense of urgency when used to describe an issue, so you might actually describe terms that describe war also shape our beliefs around a specific topic. So a previous study compared the impact of using the words battle and journey to talk about cancer. Participants who read the story framed as a battle believed the cancer diagnosis was more fatal than those who read the story framed as a journey. So even just a different strain of framing cancer as a journey or a battle made people believe it was worse in the case where it was a battle than it was a journey. So just even the language can make it feel like it's a worse situation you're dealing with. And so then they talked about I can't just go through to the next section so they were just talking about different language that we might use that can be more inspirational, or language that kind of overwhelms people and freaks people out, and that is actually a really big thing in.

Fiona Kane:

I certainly know in language that medical professionals use with their patients. I see a lot too when I go to doctor's appointments with different relatives or even my own appointments, that it's one of two things either I see sometimes medical people use language that's quite frightening, or I see them use language that's that's quite well, just that no one understands. So it's either I don't even understand or it's language that can be quite frightening. I showed it at a doctor's office a few weeks ago and he described the person's blood test results, a certain section of the blood test results about as being deranged. And this doctor is not english is not his first language but I thought, oh, you know, language like that can be really scary. Uh, so I, I get what they're saying about the different language. Uh, so, yeah, so they're talking about the deeper understanding of the psychology of framing. So how you frame something, the language you put around something Sorry, I'm getting excitable and bashing things and everything's shaking the language you put around something is the framing and it's part of how we want people, like I said, to perceive it. So it's useful to be mindful of the words and phrases that we use ourselves or that we use to grab attention from other people.

Fiona Kane:

And again, these are things I've talked about before, but just in a different way. So I've talked about it in regards to things like using, like the why not to use things, the words like food addiction and why that's a problem. Or I've talked about it in regards to, instead of saying, I have to, saying I get to or I choose to, things like that. So it's just even just the language that we use in explaining something, or the language of I am an emotional eater or I sometimes emotionally eat. They're two very different things. One is actually framing me as the thing, the other is just describing a behavior I do sometimes. So all these language things, they matter, and these are all things I have talked about before, so you'll see them in previous episodes or listen to them in previous episodes.

Fiona Kane:

So, anyway, so just moving down further in this particular study. So what they have said is actually just hold on. What I'll do is I'm just going to pause. I'll be back in a moment, just so I can find it. Yeah, look. So ultimately the paper was just talking about that if we have a deeper level of understanding of the way we frame things and the language we use to frame things, that we'll have better communication and clearer kind of results of our communication. So it's kind of just that general gist.

Fiona Kane:

Now where I wanted to talk about it, though as well, is in a few other things, and some of this, I suppose, is slightly political. But my intention is not so much about the politics, just more about the way the framing affects our health. You can choose whatever you want to believe about the politics, but it's just what I'm trying to get at in here with. What I'm about to talk to is about the framing and how it affects our physical and mental health. So there's a lot of situations now where I see and it's a particular thing to be aware of in the media so the media do lots of framing of stuff to make people feel frightened to. If you remember back to the times of lockdowns and all of that sort of stuff, the crazy language that the media used and the fear that they put into people and that kind of stuff, it was just dreadful.

Fiona Kane:

And in more recent times, like other topics I can think of where media are really the language that they use is really framing things is even when and again, I'm not going to go into politics here, just explaining it, so I'm not when you see different news people talk about, even just say things like Israel and Gaza, they will frame it in a way that supports their belief. Whichever side right. So that supports their belief, whichever side right. So you'll see, they will use very definite language that makes you know, in inverted commas, their side look better and their enemy look bad, and I've seen this language used on both sides of that. So that's the kind of thing that happens in media. So just be aware of that when things are being framed in that way, because when it's sort of the language is, uh, if, if a news reporter uses language like these people are the victims and these people are the oppressors and the bad guys in a news item that's got two very definite sides and two very like different opinions and whatever.

Fiona Kane:

Just be aware that that news reader is not being, um, that's not news. So there's a difference between. So there are commentators whose job is to talk about their opinion, um, and that's one thing, and you can choose to listen to a commentator because you do or don't like their opinion or because you just want to hear their opinion, so that you can either agree with it, argue with it, whatever. But then there are news. There's news in journalism, and there's journalists who make out that they are telling news and balanced stuff, but they frame it in such a way that they are very clearly partisan and very clearly saying I believe this, I believe that whatever. Now, that is a problem because I think it affects our health too, because the way we hear things or that we believe things that aren't true. And so another example would be in the whole kind of climate change stuff, right, so whether or not you believe that there's a climate catastrophe or there's not or whatever. Whatever you do and don't, whatever your thoughts are around that, the language that people use in the media around it, I don't think is helpful.

Fiona Kane:

So, for example, I know that in recent times, when you've looked at reporting in the UK, when they're looking at reporting on the news about the weather, they talk about all of these heat waves that they're going to have and a heat wave is like it's going to be 30 degrees or it's going to be 32 degrees or something Celsius, which in Australia is very common, right, as we have that all the time. They talk about these things. But what they've started doing is they colour in the map of all of the UK red, you know, they do red and they kind of do flames and they do, you know. And then they warn people that everyone's going to die because of you know, because it's going to be so hot. And while I recognize the need to explain to people facts about what can happen to you in the heat and whether or not you need to have more water and all those things, I get all that, I get that, but you can explain all of that in just a really sensible way, but they're not doing that.

Fiona Kane:

They are trying to frighten people, and what this is is these are people that want people to think that the planet's burning up and everyone's about to die right Now. Again, you may believe that, you may not. Whatever your opinion is your business. However, when it's trying to frighten the hell out of people and you might say, oh well, you know, if you frighten people, they'll take action, but I don't think it works that way, actually. Um, I think it's quite the opposite that. Um. Anyway, I don't want to go into all the politics, but yeah, I I don't think. Well, it hasn't worked. Right, that hasn't worked. Uh, people aren't. That's just paralyzes people or puts them in a whole lot of fear, or or has them railing against the wrong thing. So there's a lot of people out there taking action, but, like you know, sticking yourself to a road or something, or destroying it, trying to destroy a beautiful painting in an art gallery that doesn't achieve anything. So people are either going loopy and doing stupid crap like that or they're just really, really stressed and it's causing them, it's affecting their physical or mental health and causing them distress about their lives and children. I mean, it's one of the reasons why children are so depressed. So that's another example.

Fiona Kane:

Another example, you see, is I'm touching all the hot topics today, but in just things like where, um, in the trans issue as well I'm not going to go into detail in it in this podcast or get uh super political about it but there are people within that issue who say there's a genocide. There's a genocide of trans people. A genocide would indicate that there was people being murdered everywhere and there's dead people everywhere, and that's not the situation. Now you might believe there's injustice, you might believe that you don't agree with laws, there's a whole bunch of things, but telling a whole group of people that there's a genocide when there's not a genocide is not helpful. And the same goes even for the last election in the US, where people were saying that Nazis and Hitler and stuff like that and even now I've been called some interesting names along those lines as well those names have actually lost their meaning because people are just calling people. They disagree with Nazis, and you know.

Fiona Kane:

So people have just taken language that they obviously don't understand or don't want to understand, or they've regardless, they've tried to re-change language to suit themselves, and so what people are doing essentially. Essentially and this is on both sides of politics variations of this might be happening, so I'm not saying it's a one-sided thing, but it's just a really big thing. At the moment, there's a lot of loud people on on one side using particular language and uh, and it's just all of this big language to frighten people and to make people think, you know, like there was after the US election, I think there was a trans person who suicided because they literally they'd set it up that, oh my God, like if Trump gets in, they're going to line people up and shoot them, kind of thing, and they were literally saying that kind of stuff right Now. That's obviously not true. That's, you know, hyperbole.

Fiona Kane:

So you can say that you don't agree with a person's rhetoric or that you don't like the laws that they might be able to bring in, and you can bring people together to say, well, let's go and protest, or let's go and vote this person, or let's go and support this bill or whatever to fix or change whatever the thing is that you're concerned about. Absolutely. You can have concerns about those things and beliefs about those things, and obviously you know human rights and beliefs about human rights and supporting it all that fantastic, you know, but basically getting people in their mind, like I saw, people talking to their children on the day of the election, uh, and freaking their children out the children. There's one woman who videoed herself telling the children that trump had won, and had her children in tears and saying, oh, it's going to be different at school today, you know, as if him winning, the next day they're going to go to school again and be lined up and shot or something. You know it's ridiculous, right?

Fiona Kane:

So language, the way people frame things, whether it be in the media, or whether it be the way we frame things for ourselves or the way we frame things when we talk to other people we need to have a real think about it, because what we are doing is we're using language that makes people think they're more victim than what they are. We're using language that makes people who aren't victims victims and who actually takes their agency away from people who are victims and people who are real victims and not victims, like we've messed it up, right? So, essentially, language really does matter and what we're doing is we're using a lot of language at the moment that I think is physically and emotionally very harmful to people. And again I will say, this is not just about politics, I think it's just, to a certain extent it is on both sides of politics, but it is quite extreme on the left at the moment. The language, the rhetoric, and I think that seeing the levels while you only have to see the videos and stuff on TikTok levels of mental health in people who are in that situation, tells me that this isn't healthy and it's not good for them, right? So I just want to encourage you to think about language.

Fiona Kane:

Think about when people are using language on TV reports or things like that, or not just language, but it might be colors, where they're rating things and putting things in bright red with flames or whatever. Just know that language and visuals and things like that they're all used as manipulation tools and just have an awareness around it. If you have an awareness around it whether it's coming from left, right, whoever, whatever you can kind of go. Okay, I understand in this situation this person is trying to manipulate an outcome from me or manipulate a particular emotion from me and at least if you understand that and if you kind of just accept that it's happening all around, you can observe it. And one of two things it will either affect whether or not you believe that person or you'll buy into a certain story or just at least understanding that person. If they're talking in that way, they're not a news person or a journalist, they're a commentator. There's a difference. And commentators are fine. I'm a commentator, I commentate, but you're just going to be honest about the fact that you're commentating.

Fiona Kane:

So when I'm talking about health and wellness from a nutrition point of view and it's maybe something that I've studied and I know a lot about I will sort of say, like as a health professional, I believe blah, blah, blah. When I talk more about what I think about things or politics or things like that, I'm very clear that, hey, I'm just sprouting my opinion based on my life, and both is fine, but you just could be really honest about it, right. So just be aware of who is talking to you and what you're hearing and how you respond to it. But the other thing, too, is just be aware of how it affects your mental health, whatever it is, wherever it's coming from, and maybe your physical and mental health is being affected by hearing certain messages, whatever they are, by certain people. So there might be a newsreader that you're watching or a podcast you listen to or something else a group of people that you talk to, and it might be harmful to your health to be talking to those people if they're using this kind of language. So I think it's reasonable and what I'm not talking about is not is not exposing yourself to people with different opinions, because I actually think it's really healthy to be exposed to people with different opinions. I think that we all need that and it is really good to hear, well, what does the other side think and why do they think it, and that helps you strengthen your argument or maybe change your argument or maybe change your viewpoint altogether. Whatever, it is great, as long as people who are discussing it are discussing it in good faith and people aren't using these framing techniques where they use this language. And another example of this framing techniques, just to give you a bit of an idea this is kind of like look, a lawyer could explain this a whole lot better than what I can, but just even like where they say like leading the witness or whatever right. So, for example, if there's been and this was there, was there's been studies done on this, I can't, at the top of my head quote what the studies are and stuff. But there's been studies done on this.

Fiona Kane:

So they did one particular study where they had a whole bunch of people witness a car accident and what they did is afterwards they spoke to them all separately and they used different language to frame the accident. And then what they did is they got people to tell them like, how, like did they think that the car was speeding, and on all these different facts about the accident. So what they found is that when they used the word I think the word was smash If they called it a car smash, people thought that they saw glass on the ground. So they thought that there was shattered glass. Because you hear the word smash, you think smash glass, you think glass or plastic stuff, whatever, but smashed stuff on the ground right. And also, when they used the word smash, people thought that the car was speeding. Now, with the same car accident, when they just used I don't know if they called it incident accident or but some other term that wasn't smash, people didn't think the car was speeding and didn't think that there was glass on the road. And that actually wasn't glass on the road, I don't think. But if they use the term smash, people believed they'd seen it right. So that's an example of what I mean by kind of like the leading, the witness or the framing is, if you want someone to believe that what you're talking about, whoever you're talking about, is the victim, is the perpetrator, is the whatever, whatever the language you use around it, so you could just report the facts about.

Fiona Kane:

You know, this is the weather and these are the strategies that you use. You know it's a bit hotter than usual in England. You know that's fine, but it's just a bit hotter than usual. Hey, drink plenty of water. Maybe stay out of the sunshine between these hours. You'll be right, mate. And look, hey, if you don't have air con or whatever, maybe go and spend time at your local shopping mall. Or in Australia we'd have RSL clubs, whatever it is, pub, wherever they've got air conditioning or where it's cool or whatever, right, so you could do that. Or you could sort of paint the whole map in bright red and flames and tell people that are all going to die. So you get the gist of are all going to die. You know, um, so you get.

Fiona Kane:

You get the gist of let how language people use language to frame things, and so it's used in politics. It's also used in health. Uh, when people are talking about, uh, you know, meat and and um and saturated fat and that kind of stuff, people use all sorts of language where they frame things in a certain way. Certainly any language where people are talking about vegan versus meat kind of thing on both sides, you can sometimes hear the framing where people are kind of framing in a way that supports their argument, right and framing. And actually the other thing too is that what we do is that if we believe a certain thing. So what's happened in this is I've talked about this in other episodes, so I won't go into detail here but because we've spent so long demonizing saturated fat and meat, now a lot of people just assume it's really bad.

Fiona Kane:

So what you'll see is in a film. So I don't know how many films I have seen where they're talking about bacon and eggs and they're talking about them as heart attack food. Right, and you know that's. I wouldn't class them as heart attack food and everything depends on dose and whatever, but I particularly would not class eggs as heart attack food. I think processed meats have their challenges, but in meat in general is referred to as heart attack, food in movies and TV shows and eggs. They talk about eggs and people's cholesterol and heart attack and all that, which is completely incorrect.

Fiona Kane:

But that language, now that's a framing that we now use in TV comedy, in TV series, movies, whatever. That's a framing that is used now, which is an incorrect framing. But it's a framing of, like a nutrition, you know, fact, inverted commas. That is not true, but it's just so set in our system that that's what we do. The same is now that every time it's a hot day, it's because it's climate change and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So you've got to be aware of the framing that we put into things and once we decide that we essentially we want people to believe a certain thing, we use a certain framing. So it's certainly done in nutrition, it is done in politics, it is done in many things.

Fiona Kane:

So just have an awareness around that. If you have an awareness around that and if you listen to when people talk whether it's a newsreader, a podcaster, whether it's me, whoever it is just listened for the emotive words that people use and kind of go, oh, that's interesting, that person's using emotive words to try to get a certain reaction from me and if their words seem to be like sort of hyperbolic, it's like, okay, I get that, it matters, but that word is a big word for that situation, right? So just I want you to just take a step back, notice your own language, but notice language that's being used towards you, and whether it be from health educators, about politics, about whatever, just notice language. It's a really important thing and you might see a lot of this. Actually, I think I'm going to do another episode, a little bit about office politics and language and stuff like that.

Fiona Kane:

But be very aware of how language that people use, because people will frame things in such a way as to get whatever result they want, and sometimes they're completely lying and it's completely incorrect. Or sometimes what they're saying the substance might be correct, but they will use the language like if they're reporting on, like I was talking about before, something in a war, they will frame it or use words to give you the idea of who they think is the enemy or the oppressed, or oppressor, whatever right. And you hear it a lot these days because there's big oppressed, oppressor narratives everywhere. It's a sort of crazy stupid stuff that we do these days, and so you will hear, all the time, people will be letting you know who they think the oppressed and the oppressor are, in whatever situation, and they will be framing it in a certain way. So I just wanted to point out that happens a lot.

Fiona Kane:

You may or may not agree with what people are saying not saying whatever but I just want you to notice the framing, notice the emotive language, have an awareness around it, and that will just help you kind of sometimes, like just also step back from it a little bit and kind of go oh, that person's just trying to freak me out, right, which is what a lot of people got to over, sort of COVID not saying that COVID, it was not a serious situation and people didn't die, and all of that, because of course it was and all these terrible things happened. However, the language around it again, it kind of got a bit crazy on sort of ultimately on both sides, but the language around it got super crazy and very clearly people were trying to very clearly and they've admitted it since and it's been very clear, but very clearly people were trying to manipulate you. So just notice when people are trying to manipulate you one way or the other, so that you can kind of take a bit of a step back from it and go okay, the substance of what the person says you may or may not think is true, you may or may not agree with them, but hey, they're really trying to manipulate me. If they're trying that hard to manipulate me, do I need to have a bit of a closer look at it? And you know just kind of well I suppose what I'm trying to say is stay curious, notice and also notice how that framing and that language affects your physical and mental health. So then you can decide where you do and don't want to get your information from. So anyway, I hope that's. I know it's a bit confusing, but I hope that makes sense. And please, now I'd love to hear your feedback.

Fiona Kane:

And, like I said there's, the whole point of this wasn't to be political per se, but just to point out in situations where this stuff is being used. And, like I acknowledged before, it's not just one side that uses all sorts of different things, or one side of anything, whether it's politics or whatever, it is right. It's just a human thing that we use, we manipulate and we are all guilty to a certain extent of manipulating and using different language to favor the thing that we believe in or don't believe in, or whatever the situation is. Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed that. You got something out of that, and happy for you to give me any feedback. Again, I'm happy to have always happy to have conversations in good faith. I'm always happy to have conversations in good faith, but only if you want to have conversations in good faith. Anyway, like subscribe, please review in iTunes and all the usual places, comment on Rumble or YouTube and I'll talk to you all again next week. Thank you, bye.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Fiona Kane

Host