Yesterday I tried to spell out that language does influence thought, although not in the direct, unchangeable way that anthropologists like Sapir and Whorf suggested. Language can guide attention and what you attend to ultimately shapes your thinking.

People who want to influence what you are thinking are perfectly aware of these mechanisms. I can frame something as a positive outcome – this experimental medication has a 50% success rate! – or as a negative one – this experimental medication shows a 50% failure rate… – and lo and behold, people choose the treatment in scenario one and decide to forgo it in scenario two, even though there is no objective difference in the information – the medication works half of the time in both scenarios. The language use of failure vs. success makes all the difference.

Politicians know how to grab your attention – incessant repetitive messages, for example, that constantly force you to attend to a claim, have an impact. (This is one of the reasons why you should avoid repeating your adversaries’ claims with your added criticism – it increases people’s exposure to those claims.)

Politicians also know that the values of their constituencies and those of the other side often vary. In our own polarized environment, Republicans overwhelmingly value in-group loyalty, respect for authority and purity, while Democrats pay attention to fairness, harm-avoidance and reciprocity in social interaction. You can trigger these values and consequently increase the support for your political programs by using language that is associated with those concepts. If you want Republicans to support environmental measures, for example, you will be more successful pointing to the purity of our water and forests, than to how pollution will harm those most likely exposed to it. (Long versions of this argument can be found in a book by linguist George Lakoff, Don’t think of an Elephant! which should be on the nightstand of every Democratic presidential campaign advisor…)

In more insidious ways, metaphors do the work for you just fine, when you try to manipulate people into a certain direction. Scientists at USC, for example, asked people for solving a typical social problem like crime. Half of the group learned about a city wrecked by crime that preyed like a beast on the people. The other half learned that crime was a virus infecting the city. Independent of political affiliation, people increased their support for punitive measures when exposed to the beast metaphor, and opted for supportive measures when thinking about a virus. (A current textbook example of this can be found in the British press after the London Bridge stabbing. Look at the language used for the perpetrator and the proposed counter measures by Tories vs. Labour….)

It’s not just apt metaphors, though, that trigger reactions. In a fascinating recent study, a team of Israeli scientists found that how we use language will influence our emotions, particularly anger, which in turn will shape policy preferences. The researchers explain:

One of the most central and prevalent emotions in the Israeli-Palestinian inter-group conflict context is anger. Anger stems from the perception that other people are carrying out an action that is unjust, unfair, or contrary to acceptable societal norms and is associated with the goal of actively challenging the injustice and confronting the agents responsible, both at the interpersonal level and intergroup level. Importantly, in the context of intergroup conflict, anger has largely been found to decrease support for concessions and increase support for aggressive policies toward adversaries

In the most subtle manipulation, using the same word as either a noun or a verb, the researchers were able to manipulate the degree to which anger was felt. Presenting a policy as “the division of Jerusalem” vs. “dividing Jerusalem,” for example, affected participants’ subsequent evaluation of the policies. “Phrasing support for concessions as well as retaliatory policies toward the out-group in noun form (vs. verb form) reduced levels of anger. Subsequently willingness to compromise went up, and support for retaliation was diminished.

Put simply: the less angry you are the more willing you are to compromise. Verbs pull your attention towards the agency of the adversaries (e.g., dividing Jerusalem) which incites anger since you deem them responsible for the crisis. They are also more vivid in our minds, since we can imagine the activity. Nouns, on the other hand, are more abstract, creating a larger psychological distance, not triggering as much anger.

Let’s use nouns then: Conflict Resolution! Anger Reduction! Concession! Compromise! Peace. (And no, I am not naive to suggest it’s this simple. I just firmly believe that every bit that might help is worth a try.)

Here are peaceful winter landscapes – first snow on the mountains – from last week.

Haydn‘s Missa in tempore belli (Mass at a Time of War) describes alternatives.