Social media posts, speeches, advertising slogans and leaflets... Why do some of them inspire us to act while we pass others by with indifference? How can we motivate others? What signals, at the linguistic level, can persuade us to take action? How can we learn to identify these subtle methods of persuasion? Researchers from SWPS University investigated this issue.
"Even though collective behaviors, such as protests and support campaigns, are often inspired by passionate speeches or posts on social media, little research has been devoted to the language used in such situations. We assumed that effective calls to action would consist of verbs, and words or expressions related to planning, says Dr. Magdalena Formanowicz," a psychologist at SWPS University.
In three studies, experts from SWPS University and the University of Padua tested whether the inclusion of verbs and expressions referring to specific tasks would affect the effectiveness of a text. The results were published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Over 1.8 thousand people took part in the studies. In the first study, participants created a leaflet to mobilize others to participate in environmental action, volunteering or voting in elections, or a leaflet expressing their thoughts on the importance of one of the above activities. In the next two studies, other groups of participants evaluated the texts created in the first study.
"Our studies clearly show that if people want to encourage others to act, they particularly often use two linguistic categories. One category includes verbs that are carriers of agency (e.g. do, go, take, prepare) and increase the level of mobilization. Another linguistic determinant of such messages is providing a concrete method of executing the planned action," says the author of the study.
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