Author	Thread: The power of words
Tulip89 View Profile History	The power of words Posted : 31 Aug, 2010 08:51 PM We all know how powerful words are, or at least we think we do. A study done at New York University makes me think we don't really understand how powerful our words are. A group of undergrad students were given "tests" where they had to unscramble sentences that had been scrambled. In the first group of tests, words like "aggressively," "bold," "rude," "bother," "intrude," and "infringe," were sprinkled throughout. The other group was full of words like, "respect," "considerate," "appreciate," "yield," "patiently," and "courteous." When the student was done unscrambling the sentences, the students were told to walk down the hall and talk to the person running the experiment to get their next assignment. When the student arrived at the office, the person running the experiment made sure they were locked in conversation with someone else about something completely different. The administrator wanted to see if people from group 1 interrupted any faster than the people from group 2. They thought the difference might be a few seconds. What did they find? People from group 1 interrupted after an average of 5 minutes. The overwhelming majority of people from group 2 never interrupted at all. If the experiment hadn't ended after 10 minutes, there's no telling how long they would have stood there. What does this all mean? It means that the words we us have a profound impact on the people around us. It means that you have far more power than we have ever thought. In another study, asking black students to identify their race on a practice GRE test caused that group to get half as many questions right as the group of black students not asked to identify their race. People don't even realize that other people's words had the effect that they did. We we encourage and build each other up, there's no telling what impact that has on the rest of their day. The same goes for when we choose to tear down. Constant negativity really does bring people down. Positivity builds them up. Continually pointing things back to Christ? Who knows how great an effect that has on others? We're constantly being "primed" with words and images as we walk through life. We are constantly "priming" others thought too. We really need to be careful about what we say and how we say it. What we say has far more impact than we could ever imagine. Post Reply
springrose10 View Profile History	The power of words Posted : 31 Aug, 2010 09:05 PM EXCELLENT!!! Thanks for sharing Tulip! Post Reply
View Profile History	The power of words Posted : 31 Aug, 2010 09:18 PM This is just a theory, but I think salesmen use this as a trick to their advantage. They say something that only has a limited number of responses and since the response is coming out of the persons mouth it gets them into a corner and gives the salesman more leverage and so on. And before you know it your walking out with something you didn't intend to buy, wondering why you even bought it, and hating yourself for letting him take complete control and talk you into such a stupid sell. Good post. Another interesting experiment involving words was Picture A had a person and listed below where some attributes both good and bad. Picture B had the same person with the same attributes, but listed in a different order w/ the less desireable traits being first. The result was they thought more favorably of Person A even though both were the same person and had the same traits. Post Reply
View Profile History	The power of words Posted : 31 Aug, 2010 11:50 PM So very true, Tulip... And what an interesting study! I love reading studies =) Thanks for sharing! Post Reply
SilverFire View Profile History	The power of words Posted : 2 Sep, 2010 07:15 PM I dunno. I've seen a lot of studies and without knowing the sample size and how the studies were conducted, there's just no way to really know if the studies proved anything. For instance, graduate students are a fairly restrictive group -- it's really difficult to generalize from their tendencies to all humans. And the performance of black students -- are we to say that even asking someone their race impacts them negatively, or is it only blacks that are affected that way? No hate man, but I just can't buy it. Post Reply
Tulip89 View Profile History	The power of words Posted : 2 Sep, 2010 11:09 PM I'm sure grad students are a restrictive group, but they had nothing to do with that survey. When I said that undergrads were used, believe it or not, I actually meant undergrads. Feel free to look at the study yourself: Bargh, John A.; Chen, Mark; Burrows, Laura (1996). "Automaticity of Social Behavior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71 Post Reply
View Profile History	The power of words Posted : 2 Sep, 2010 11:44 PM Is the study online, Tulip? Post Reply
View Profile History	The power of words Posted : 2 Sep, 2010 11:44 PM Okay, nevermind, I do know how to use Google and can figure that out for myself... haha... Post Reply
View Profile History	The power of words Posted : 3 Sep, 2010 12:10 AM WHY is Yale's website being dumb right now? It's YALE... It's supposed to work, eh? I found an abstract of it on my alma mater's site, but I wanted to read the entire study!! Bargh is a pretty reputable dude. I recognize the name from some stuff from the social psych. class I took many years ago. He's the ACME Lab dude. Not sure who the other people are, though. It's late *yawn* I really shouldn't still be on here. I can try Yale again tomorrow. Post Reply
View Profile History	The power of words Posted : 5 Sep, 2010 10:50 AM I undustand all this ,I believe that words we use have an impact on people around us ,I speak french I know only a few words in english but I know this study and his fiability. Post Reply