In the realm of communications and advocacy, the power of positive messaging cannot be overstated. In this insightful piece, Brett Davidson delves into the compelling research and expert advice that underscores the importance of focusing on aspirations and solutions.

In communications and advocacy it can be tempting to focus on the things that are wrong, or to spend time negating or debunking false information. However, messaging experts have been telling us for years that it’s much more effective to focus on what we want rather than what we do not want. For example, cognitive linguist Anat Shenker-Osorio says ‘you feed what you fight,’ and that rather than using ‘no’ so much and talking about what we don’t want, we need to focus much more on what we do want -- to paint a picture of the world we are working towards. Trabian Shorters, who developed the concept of Asset Framing, encourages nonprofits and foundations to focus on the aspirations and contributions of the people they are trying to help, rather than on their deficits.

...we need to focus much more on what we want -- to paint a picture of the world we are working towards.

It seems the evidence backs this up. Previous studies have shown that the brain often processes negative statements more slowly than positive ones, and makes more mistakes in doing so. Now there is a new piece of research that confirms this. Arianna Zuanazzi and colleagues at New York University showed research participants positive and negative sets of adjectives, such as ‘good/bad’ and ‘not good/not bad’ or ‘happy/sad’ and ‘not happy/not sad’. They found that the negatively stated adjectives were confusing and that it took more time for people to figure out what they meant. In addition, they found that negation only partially changed the meaning of words. For example, ‘Saying something like "your coffee is not hot" makes the coffee appear cooler without actually being cold’. 

So what does all of this mean? It means that when we say things such as “homeless people are not lazy”, or “migrants are not criminals” it takes our audiences’ brains some time to figure out what we are saying, and that when they do, it may not leave them feeling exactly positively about migrants or homeless people. Rather, find ways to talk about the humanity, dreams, hopes and contributions of migrants, or homeless people, or whoever it is you are working to support.

Hope-based Comms encourages us to talk about solutions and how things should be, more than denouncing everything that is wrong. As Shenker-Osorio constantly repeats: “say what you are for, say what you are for, say what you are for”.

📷 Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash