Frame Control Psychology 101: How to Influence Yourself and Others

There will be many times where life “just won’t play fair”.

Life will give you a mess of seemingly undesirable things: the loss of a job or a business, a rejection from a woman, or even times where you look like a complete fool in a social setting.

Layered on top of that, is that life will put desirable outcomes on the other side of some type of persuasive activity (such as selling products to strangers, asking a woman for a number/date, etc) .

Taken as a whole, this seems like a massive “situation” to deal with but there is a concept that makes it easier.

That concept is called frame control and we’re going to take a brief overview of its psychology. At the end of this article you should have a preliminary idea on how to implement it and the implications it has on you personally and socially.

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What is Frame Control?

Frame control is the domain of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and how we humans slot different situations into subjective psychological categories.

Essentially, it is the act of imposing a mental/psychological viewpoint on any situation and having that situation “conform” to that frame or belief. This is a cornerstone of self-motivation and social intelligence.

As human beings, we live our lives in societies and civilizations. Societies and civilizations have rules, laws, regulations, and most importantly – social norms.

According to social constructionist theory, many of our social norms are made up. This is largely because society is a “contract” between individuals.

We’ve agreed upon these social norms in an attempt to help massive amounts of people work together for the goal of maintaining and constructing society. Following social norms is to help make conscious decision-making on our part “easier“. Basically if you or I act a certain way, we’ll get certain rewards by others/society (money, love, status, etc.)

The discussion of social norms and their origins belong to the realm of sociology or even psychology, which is beyond the scope of this topic – but this is where frame control comes in.

The Inner and Outer Game of Frame Control

Since “life” is one giant “frame” more or less, we can take this down to the micro/individual/group level. How you view the world is a frame. The frame is constructed from your past experiences, beliefs, and even suggestions. This frame will dictate the responses you have towards life and ultimately, your behavior towards yourself and other individuals.

As such, frame ultimately has an inner component that affects what you do in areas such as:

• Motivation
• Self-Discipline
• Productivity
• Life Expansion

And an outer component that affects others and situations such as:

• General Social Skills
• Negotiation
• Public Speaking
• Influence

This means that constructing good frames and being able to persuade not only others but yourself to take certain actions is very important.

And while there are universal laws and principles of life, the ways and means in which you follow them vary. And it will vary depending on what frame you use to follow it.

For example, take the question “how do you make a million dollars?”. The answer will depend on what path you follow. You can be a doctor, you can be #5 at a startup that goes public, and the list goes on and on. This is the essence of frame control. You can frame multiple situations how you want – but the frame needs to follow some “rules” at the end of the day.

What does that entail? Well, here’s a breakdown.

Tenets of Frame and Responding to Frame Challenges (AKA How to Master Frame Control)

In order to use psychological frame control to its max effectiveness, it’s important to know how frames are best exploited and even challenged. Here’s some things to be aware of and some frame control examples.

Dominant Frames Win

By default, people come into any interaction with their own version of reality. You do it, I do it, everyone does it. Therefore, we are all attempting to frame that interaction within our paradigm of the world.

In any persuasive interaction, the person who has the more dominant version of reality will impose their frame onto an interaction and guide that interaction. That’s just how it is.

Think of Steve Jobs and his “reality distortion field”. That’s an example of frame.

For another example, think about parenting. It’s very easy to get a parent to get a child to be compliant and obedient because the parent sets up the frame of:

“I’m the adult and authority in the room. You need to listen to adults and authority figures. Therefore you have to listen to me.”

Thus, the child complies and things move on.

However, this frame will begin to break down in adolescence as that child develops their own personality and view of reality. If the frame that the parent set up is weak, it will break down and the adolescent will not listen to the parent. Many stories of “teenage rebellion” are stories of people who don’t comply with frames because the parents or authority figures putting forth those frames are usually spineless individuals who rely on “because I said so” reasoning rather than true conviction.

If you cannot back up what you’re saying in some way or do not fully buy in to it, don’t expect others to as well.

This even goes for self-persuasion. So many people want to be business owners and entrepreneurs but it never happens.

Why?

Because they themselves know that they are fooling themselves. The frame of “I am/want to be an entrepreneur” is BS. They know it, everyone knows it. Therefore, no real and constructive action is taken because the frame is weak.

Takeaway: If the frame is faulty and has no conviction to support it, the frame or belief will collapse. People who have legitimate conviction impose their viewpoints on others.

Nonaggressiveness Also Wins

You know those people who are extremely loud and in your face or the people who try to show off that they’re better than other people? Don’t you hate those guys?

Yeah, I do too. And that’s exactly what you’re doing when you try to push your frame or your worldview on others.

You see, persuasion never works by force. You cannot force other people to agree with you. You CAN persuade them with something that appeals to them on a logical or (often) emotional level.

When you set up the frame, you just imply the frame with an element of naturalness. You don’t say “here, here’s my frame!!! Look at it!!!”

An example of this would be someone coming in for a job interview. This person is confident, self-assured, and knows their stuff. They don’t have to brag, they don’t have to boast. They just are competent and their competence speaks volumes.

Another example will be a man who assumes that a woman is into him. Naturally, he behaves in a competent and confident manner and lo and behold, she is into him.

This also goes once again for persuading yourself. The moment you try to “force” yourself to do things, your subconscious will buck back. You might be able to get away with it for a limited period of time, but forcing yourself to do things you don’t want to do is not a good long-term strategy.

Takeaway: Frames are best when they’re just “assumed” as a natural part of the interaction. The moment you try to force compliance, the frame shatters.

People Will Test the Frame

As a natural part of life, people will test you to see what you’re really made of. This is the essence behind things like “hazing” rituals in a group like a sorority or fraternity or growing lovers who inadvertently test each other.

Someone who establishes a frame has a chance to be seen as a leader in a social interaction, so people need to ensure that the frame is solid and that the person is not leading them to destruction like a ship headed for the rocks.

What are some of these tests? People will often test you by throwing you curveballs or attempting to diminish your composure, sometimes out of spite, but mainly just to get a reaction out of you. However, you should never “react”, you should “respond”. And you respond in one of several ways:

• Amusement
• Dismissal
• Reflection
• Escalation

Amusement

One response is amusement. You are literally amused that someone would challenge with you. You see the person who tries to challenge you as a form of entertainment.

This can (but not always) may involve some form of comeback. Not from a place of insecurity or argumentation, but as a form of light sparring. This is the essence of wit.

Check it out:

Dismissal

Dismissing frame challenges is usually done with people who don’t have strong frame control themselves. This will often be an attempt by the other person to insult you and increase their frame assertion.

In this, you just act non-reactive. If someone does something that is supposed to elicit a strong response from you, simply not responding will do wonders. It’s as if they were so irrelevant that you didn’t hear them. Or maybe you DID hear them, but you just stare at them and say nothing.

It makes the other person look like a weak individual who has no social power.

Use in the right way, this can be very powerful. Here’s one example of this:

Reflection

When someone challenges the frame, you reflect the challenge right back at them. To do this, you must be fast. It’s basically ad-libbing.

This is often seen in late night comedy. Here’s an example of what this looks like in action.

Escalation

While this is reserved for last, this can be an effective use of frame reinforcement.

Many people (especially weaker individuals) who challenge a frame will not escalate conflict past a certain point. This means if they start something, you follow it up with something slightly higher. You don’t need to go all the way to starting a fight (though it could happen) but this may mean adding a bit of bluster to the frame. You’re basically sending the message that they fucked with the wrong hombre.

I do not recommend this in most cases because it can be overkill and there are guys out there who will escalate it further than even you wanted to go.

Here’s a softer example what this looks like in action, yet again another video by Charisma on Command:

Takeaway: There are many different ways that people will subtly test you to diminish the frame. You can step up to these tests with the right social acumen and awareness.

Conclusion + Wrapping Up

The concept of frame control psychology goes way beyond what could be said here, but this is just a brief overview. Knowing how framing works is essential to being a “charismatic” individual. In fact, this is what many charismatic people do – unconsciously. However, you can do it consciously and understand how to frame your life situations and circumstances in a favorable light.

The implications of frame control on any situation are massive, because it dictates outcomes. Therefore, people will try to assert their version of reality or how they want reality to go on any situation. This will inevitably lead to the “bashing of heads” or frame challenges. There are many ways to respond to frame challenges, but the main point is to assert your frame and making the other persons’ nonexistent.

When people who have good perspectives of reality assert their frames, we all benefit.

Did you know about frame control? How have you seen it used in a social interaction or even how you see the world? Let me know in the comments.