Summit 2024: Keynote Address, Nat Kendall-Taylor

Summit 2024: Keynote Address, Nat Kendall-Taylor

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Nat Kendall-Taylor, PhD, serves as the Chief Executive Officer at the FrameWorks Institute, where he oversees the organization's pioneering research-based approach to strategic communications. This approach uses methods from the social and behavioral sciences to measure how people understand complex socio-political issues and tests ways to reframe them to drive social change.  

With a background in psychological anthropology and communications science, Dr. Kendall-Taylor guides participants through framing, which is the choices we make in presenting ideas (e.g., values used for an argument, interdependence of ideas, metaphors, pronouns, and verbs used). He then discusses cultural mindsets, which are implicit understandings and patterns of reasoning that influence communication at a subconscious level. Three mindsets that block change are fatalism, individualism, and otherism. Dr. Kendall-Taylor used the framing of tobacco products as an example because, historically, tobacco use was framed as an individual vice (individualism mindset). It was not until tobacco was framed as a defective product/dangerous consumer good that the cultural mindset shifted, and practical policy change occurred. 

Kendall-Taylor then discusses the three "ingredients" necessary to shift mindsets: 

1. The first is framing and narrative strategy, which is what to say and how to say it. Dr. Kendall-Taylor emphasized the need to include context in messaging and focus on broader, thematic stories about well-being across the life course to avoid individualism.  

2. Next, individuals must reset their problem/solution balance in communication practices. For example, issues framed with a high degree of urgency, but low solution efficacy lead directly to fatalism. Therefore, we must focus on telling solution stories and demonstrating positive outcomes to garner support.  

3. Finally, Dr. Kendall-Taylor underscored the importance of building momentum and collectivism. Research shows that sharing common stories and brief exposure to a metaphor for building momentum (e.g., momentum is powerful) reduced people's implicit bias by almost a third. Dr. Kendall-Taylor ended his powerful speech with a quote from Adrienne Maree Brown, "There is an art to flocking: staying separate enough not to crowd each other, aligned enough to maintain a shared direction, and cohesive enough to always move towards each other." 

Nat Kendall Taylor

Chief Executive Officer

FrameWorks Institute

Nat Kendall-Taylor serves as Chief Executive Officer at the FrameWorks Institute. Nat oversees the organization’s pioneering, research-based approach to strategic communications, which uses methods from the social and behavioral sciences to measure how people understand complex socio-political issues and tests ways to reframe them to drive social change. As CEO, he leads a multi-disciplinary team of social scientists and communications practitioners who investigate ways to apply innovative framing research methods to social issues and train nonprofit organizations to put the findings into practice.

An expert in psychological anthropology and communications science, Nat publishes widely in the popular and professional press and lectures frequently in the United States and abroad. His work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Science Communication, Human Organization, Applied Communications Research, Child Abuse and Neglect, and the Annals of Anthropological Practice. He has presented at numerous conferences and organizations in the United States and around the world, ranging from Harvard University and the National Academy of Sciences to the Parenting Research Centre in Australia, the Science and Society Symposium in Canada, and Amnesty International in the United Kingdom. He is a senior fellow at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, a visiting professor at the Child Study Center at Yale School of Medicine, and a fellow at the British-American Project.

Nat joined FrameWorks in 2008; since then, he has led work across the FrameWorks portfolio, with a special focus on issues related to early childhood development and mental health, criminal justice, and aging. He has also led the expansion of FrameWorks’ work outside the United States, working in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Kenya, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Prior to joining FrameWorks, Nat’s research focused on understanding the social and cultural factors that create health disparities and affect decision-making. He has conducted fieldwork on the Swahili coast of Kenya, where he studied pediatric epilepsy, traditional healing, and the impacts of chronic illness on family well-being, and in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, where he studied child marriage and higher education. He has also conducted ethnographic research on theories of motivation in “extreme” athletes. Nat holds a BA from Emory University and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Trish D'Antonio

Vice President, Policy and Professional Affairs The Gerontological Society of America

Executive Director, The National Center to Reframe Aging

Patricia M. D’Antonio, BSPharm, MS, MBA, BCGP is the Vice President of Policy and Professional Affairs for The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) and a board-certified geriatric pharmacist. Trish directs GSA’s policy initiatives and is responsible for developing relationships with organizations in the aging arena. Trish represents GSA on several policy coalitions and serves as co-chair for the Adult Vaccine Access Coalition, president of the board of the Protecting Access to Pain Relief and Chair of the Friends of NIA.  Additionally, she serves as the Executive Director for the National Center to Reframe Aging, the central hub to advance the long-term social change endeavor designed to improve the public’s understanding of what aging means and the many ways that older people contribute to our society. Before joining GSA, Trish served as Executive Director for the District of Columbia Board of Pharmacy and Program Manager for the Pharmaceutical Control Division, where she was responsible for the regulatory and policy development for the practice of pharmacy and served as liaison to the FDA, DEA, and other federal, state, and city organizations that promote safe handling of medications.  She received her Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from Duquesne University and her Master of Science in Health Finance and Master in Business Administration with a concentration in health care from Temple University. She completed a residency in administration and finance at The Philadelphia Geriatric Center.

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Summit 2024: Keynote Address, Introduction
Open to view video.  |   Closed captions available  |  5 minutes
Open to view video.  |   Closed captions available  |  5 minutes Nat Kendall-Taylor, PhD, serves as the Chief Executive Officer at the FrameWorks Institute, where he oversees the organization's pioneering research-based approach to strategic communications. This approach uses methods from the social and behavioral sciences to measure how people understand complex socio-political issues and tests ways to reframe them to drive social change. With a background in psychological anthropology and communications science, Dr. Kendall-Taylor guides participants through framing, which is the choices we make in presenting ideas (e.g., values used for an argument, interdependence of ideas, metaphors, pronouns, and verbs used). He then discusses cultural mindsets, which are implicit understandings and patterns of reasoning that influence communication at a subconscious level. Three mindsets that block change are fatalism, individualism, and otherism. Dr. Kendall-Taylor used the framing of tobacco products as an example because, historically, tobacco use was framed as an individual vice (individualism mindset). It was not until tobacco was framed as a defective product/dangerous consumer good that the cultural mindset shifted, and practical policy change occurred. Kendall-Taylor then discusses the three "ingredients" necessary to shift mindsets: 1. The first is framing and narrative strategy, which is what to say and how to say it. Dr. Kendall-Taylor emphasized the need to include context in messaging and focus on broader, thematic stories about well-being across the life course to avoid individualism. 2. Next, individuals must reset their problem/solution balance in communication practices. For example, issues framed with a high degree of urgency, but low solution efficacy lead directly to fatalism. Therefore, we must focus on telling solution stories and demonstrating positive outcomes to garner support. 3. Finally, Dr. Kendall-Taylor underscored the importance of building momentum and collectivism. Research shows that sharing common stories and brief exposure to a metaphor for building momentum (e.g., momentum is powerful) reduced people's implicit bias by almost a third. Dr. Kendall-Taylor ended his powerful speech with a quote from Adrienne Maree Brown, "There is an art to flocking: staying separate enough not to crowd each other, aligned enough to maintain a shared direction, and cohesive enough to always move towards each other."
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Summit 2024: Keynote Address, Nat Kendall-Taylor
Recorded 04/25/2024  |  60 minutes  |   Closed captions available
Recorded 04/25/2024  |  60 minutes  |   Closed captions available Nat Kendall-Taylor, PhD, CEO of the FrameWorks Institute, guides participants through the concept of framing using his background in psychological anthropology and communications science to highlight the importance of narrative strategy.
You must register to access.