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posted by martyb on Monday September 09 2019, @02:59AM   Printer-friendly
from the *my*-PC-runs-Linux dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez refers to immigrant detention centers as "concentration camps," or President Trump calls immigrants "illegals," they may take some heat for being politically incorrect. But using politically incorrect speech brings some benefits: It's a powerful way to appear authentic.

Researchers at Berkeley Haas [School of Business] found that replacing even a single politically correct word or phrase with a politically incorrect one—"illegal" versus "undocumented" immigrants, for example—makes people view a speaker as more authentic and less likely to be swayed by others.

"The cost of political incorrectness is that the speaker seems less warm, but they also appear less strategic and more 'real,'" says Asst. Prof. Juliana Schroeder, co-author of the paper, which includes nine experiments with almost 5,000 people and is forthcoming in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. "The result may be that people may feel less hesitant in following politically incorrect leaders because they appear more committed to their beliefs."

Although politically correct speech is more often defended by liberals and derided by conservatives, the researchers also found there's nothing inherently partisan about the concept. In fact, conservatives are just as likely to be offended by politically incorrect speech when it's used to describe groups they care about, such as evangelicals or poor whites.

"Political incorrectness is frequently applied toward groups that liberals tend to feel more sympathy towards, such as immigrants or LGBTQ individuals, so liberals tend to view it negatively and conservatives tend to think it's authentic," says Berkeley Haas Ph.D. candidate Michael Rosenblum, the lead author of the paper (the third co-author is Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School). "But we found that the opposite can be true when such language is applied to groups that conservatives feel sympathy for—like using words such as 'bible thumper' or 'redneck'."

[...]Although President Trump's wildly politically incorrect statements seem to make him more popular in certain circles, copycat politicians should take heed. The researchers found that politically incorrect statements make a person appear significantly colder, and because they appear more convinced of their beliefs, they may also appear less willing to engage in crucial political dialogue.


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @02:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @02:16PM (#891687)

    And one possible conclusion one might get from the article is that political incorrectness is ass-kissing for the fearful votes who want to give their will over to the "strong man" who will save them. When you were a kid black folks couldn't attend white universities and the white power movement was as nicely open as it is sadly becoming again today. So I think I'll blame it on the Rednecks and the Sheets.

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