Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models

by Gabriel Weinberg

There are some more subtle aspects of framing to consider, captured in a few mental models that we explore in the rest of this section. Let’s think about a more mundane situation than the American Revolution: getting a babysitter. While mid-career professionals are unlikely to take up babysitting for extra cash, they are likely to babysit for free when a friend is in a pinch. The first scenario is framed from a market perspective (“Would you babysit my kids for fifteen dollars an hour?”) and the second is framed from a social perspective (“Can you please do me a favor?”). The difference in the way this situation is framed can be thought of as social norms versus market norms and draws on the concept of reciprocity from the previous section.