The word has power
And manages people’s behavior.
Talking points and review of research from the book “Biology of good and evil. How Science Explains Our Actions” by author Robert Sapolsky, neuroendocrinologist, professor of biology, neurology, and neurosurgery.
It turns out that the words we choose to describe situations, products, and something else directly affect the behavior of people who listen to us or read us.
This power of the word is important to understand for authors, editors, and everyone who works with content. And apply to work.
I have no reason not to trust this information. Everything is supported by research — I found them and brought them here.
For example, such a study was conducted: participants had to play an economic game. There regularly decide whether to cooperate or compete on a case-by-case basis.
So their tactics depended heavily on the name of the situation: call the game “Wall Street” and the players tend to be less cooperative. The name “Commonwealth” gives exactly the opposite result.
The same thing happened if the participants in the game were to read a list of seemingly unrelated words before starting the game.
Words pro-social — sincere, with a vague meaning, such as “help”, “harmony”, “honesty”, “common” — caused a tendency to cooperate, and such as “power”, “position”, “assertiveness”, “ arrogance,” had the opposite effect.
If words such as “rude” and “aggressive” were added to the list (instead of “loyal” or “polite”), the subjects began to interrupt companions immediately after reading it.
Those who were “prepared” before the experiment with the word “loyalty” (instead of the word “equality”) tend to team tactics in the economic game.And that is not all. Verbal preparation affects the moral side of decision making.
Here is an example from a book about this:
“Every lawyer knows that the judges will reach one or another verdict, depending on how colorfully the actions of the accused are described. Neuroimaging studies have shown that the brighter the words, the more excited the anterior cingulate cortex. Further, people condemn immoral acts more severely if they are described by the words “bad”, “seditious” instead of “forbidden” or “inappropriate”.
Moral dilemmas in cognitive neuroscience of moral decision-making: A principled review
It also turned out that the word “African American” is associated with a higher level of education and income than “black”.
A rose by any other name?: The consequences of subtyping “African-Americans” from “Blacks”
In another Nobel Prize-winning study, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky showed how word choice influences decision making.
The participants in the experiment decided whether to prescribe drug or not. If they were told that “when taking a drug, 95% of people survive,” then subjects, including professional doctors, were more likely to prescribe the drug than if they were told that “in 5% of cases, the drug is fatal.”
Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions
Words transform our thoughts and feelings in the right direction. Even faint shades of meaning are important. Thus, the words directly affect the user`s attitude to the brand and their desire to buy. Another plus in the treasury of the importance of editors and authors.
If you write quickly and not thoughtfully, then people draw the same quick conclusions (but not that ones that are needed). Here it is aptly to recall our Russian proverb: “As you call a ship, so it will sail.”
