by Hugh M. Lewis

Symbolic Framing is a body of methods I developed preparatory, during and after my doctoral fieldwork in Malaysia in 1993-4. This body of methods has been based upon the application of gestalt theory to understanding patterns of behavioral and cognitive response to stimuli, based upon pattern recognition and pattern projection, and the organization of experience that is measured and correlated between different tasks, between different individuals and between different groupings of individuals, especially across cultural boundaries.  Result of some of the doctoral research has been published on-line at several places: http://www.lewismicropublishing.com/Publications/TyingItUp/ and http://www.lewismicropublishing.com/Publications/Cognition/ and http://www.lewismicropublishing.com/Publications/Cybernetics/  

What was revealed repeatedly and consistently from this research was strongly patterns of clear cut cross-cultural differentials in behavioral response patterning across a broad range of tasks, that were in general analyzed and recorded for their physical patterns without an effort to interpret or score these patterns within some interpretive framework of purported symbolic significations. Though we used instruments like Thematic Apperception Tasks and Inkblot Tasks (Harrower and Rorscharch) we only scored them in terms of the whole-part whole, type of response elicitation, location and frequency and so forth, and we may no effort to interpret this data in a psycho-diagnostic or psychoanalytic manner.

The consequence of this research was the conclusion that human behavioral response varied considerably within group and across group patterns, and there was significant patterns of response grouped and differentiated according to gross cross-cultural differences. Follow-up analysis and subsequent post-doctoral work in China tended to validate and reconfirm these finds on a significant level, leading to the conclusion that humans are in terms of worldview and behavioral response patterning culturally relative in basic ways, even though reasons for these patterns cannot be clearly explained in an organic way.

I reached the conclusion that these methods can be extended in a number of areas, for facilitation of learning in language acquisition, cognitive development, of knowledge, for rehabilitation from psychological disorder or distress, for purposes of behavior modification and reform. I determined as well that it was probably possible to conduct a number of controlled experiments in natural and culturally defined human behavioral settings, in order to discover complex patterns of response that are typically elicited in comparable settings. The value of this would be to show the direct connection and linkage between more formal studies to more natural settings, showing the relevance of the same general conclusions across a broad range of possible contexts.

I also reached a conclusion that symbolic framing methods were not only of virtually unlimited productivity, but they had already been largely relied upon in everyday settings, even if we did not obviously see them or interpret their patterns in the manner of "symbolic framing." Facets of these methods are deployed regularly, daily in fact, by many people in fields as diverse as education, criminology and psychology, without a label or coherent methodology being attached to the methods and techniques deployed. Symbolic framing becomes then and therefore a frame of reference, and a methodological framework, which describes a wide range of possible methodological applications to the general issue of understanding in depth and breadth the nature of human behavior.

I managed in the course of work in China to apply this body of methods systematically to the problems of advanced English instruction and to the challenges of adult second language acquisition in a foreign language, which, by the fourth month, brought credible and significant results in terms of rapid improvement in the auditory and speaking capability of my students, on average. The significant break through came in focusing not only and exclusive upon non-visual modalities of learning a foreign language (namely enforced speaking and hearing) but in providing multiple structured behavioral settings in which students were forced to become productive in English in a variety of ways that were not only interesting but mostly fun for them to do.

Though it has been ten years since the first fieldwork was initiated, I have not changed my mind or altered my professional opinion about the significance of this body of methods, and the general methodological framework that defines them in a larger context as being generally, theoretically significant.

Symbolic framing, not as methodology, but as a natural human pattern of behavioral response, underlies the creative and constructive capacities of all human endeavor, and provides the symbolic foundations for cognition, and the cognitive foundations for cultural and behavioral organization. It comes to play a vital role in the symbolic mediation of conflict, or potential conflict, in the behavioral adaptation to changing circumstances, and in the counter-structural processes that punctuate and intermittently reinforce everyday life in its normal operational flow.

General Systems Essays, Vol. I