If you ever need help with something, choose your words wisely. A new study out of UC San Diego shows actions are strongly influenced by language.
UC San Diego psychology professor Christopher Bryan studies how minor differences in wording can better convince people to do something. Bryan says it turns out that, "When you describe behavior with a noun, it signals that you're saying something more significant about a person's basic character than when you describe it with a verb."
In a paper published this week, Bryan describes his recent experiment testing this theory out on kids 3 to 6 years old. Instructors taught some kids about "helping" and others about being a "helper." He found that later on, the kids who learned about being a "helper" were over 20 percent more likely to actually help the instructor put away toys.
Bryan's previous research shows that adults can also be tricked by these subtle wording tweaks. For instance, we're more likely to actually vote when we're primed to be a "voter" rather than just to "vote."
Bryan says his latest study shows that even at very early stages of development, children want to take on positive identities.
"What was exciting to us was this suggestion that children this young are already playing an active role in trying to shape that self-concept," Bryan said. "They're trying to craft a self-image as good and helpful."
And nouns seem to help them do that better than verbs.
