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posted by martyb on Monday July 21 2014, @01:34AM   Printer-friendly
from the Fake-Your-Way-To-The-Top dept.

Businessweek brings us news of How to Get Ahead by Speaking Vaguely. Projecting power is incredibly simple: just communicate in abstractions. Details convey weakness.

In one of the seven experiments, participants read quotes from a politician who described an earthquake as killing 120 and injuring 400; later, when he simply said it was a national tragedy, subjects thought he was a better leader.

An author of the study, Cheryl J. Wakslak (University of Southern California), cautions however against meaningless business jargon — words such as "ideaate" and "deliverables" that some workers resort to when trying to seem impressive. "Being completely vague will just make you sound stupid," she explains. "Bulls———is best when it has a kernel of truth in it."

The report was published this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the full report is available at Using Abstract Language Signals Power (pdf)

 
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  • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by Horse With Stripes on Monday July 21 2014, @02:29AM

    by Horse With Stripes (577) on Monday July 21 2014, @02:29AM (#71675)

    Sure 120 deaths and 400 injured in an earthquake isn't good, but it's a little more than a average day of motor vehicle deaths in the US. Maybe if the numbers they used would have been higher then they would have gotten a higher "leadership" assessment?

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by forkazoo on Monday July 21 2014, @02:59AM

    by forkazoo (2561) on Monday July 21 2014, @02:59AM (#71688)

    The exact numbers are sort of beside the point. Most people want stirring emotional rhetoric from politicians. Look at any national campaign in the US, and you'll clearly see that having any sort of actual policy objectives hurts a candidate in the polls. The issue is never so much exactly what the carbon tax rate should be. It's that "Find creative new ways to further the American dream in a way that keeps the environment clean for our children" is what people want to hear.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by moondoctor on Monday July 21 2014, @03:18AM

      by moondoctor (2963) on Monday July 21 2014, @03:18AM (#71697)

      i agree completely about the exact numbers being irrelevant.

      "Look at any national campaign in the US, and you'll clearly see that having any sort of actual policy objectives hurts a candidate in the polls"

      speaks loudly to the issue of voters choosing a candidate they 'like' (feel is more powerful?) over choosing how they would prefer to see the country be managed.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21 2014, @04:23AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21 2014, @04:23AM (#71709)

        > speaks loudly to the issue of voters choosing a candidate they 'like' (feel is more powerful?)
        > over choosing how they would prefer to see the country be managed.

        I don't think it is all that revealing.

        Fundamentally the voters must leave it up to the experts. Very few normal people have the time or expertise to make a meaningful judgment of policies. They look for someone who appears to feel the way they do and expect them to take care of the details. Even if the candidates do make specific policy commitments, the vast majority of voters will only understand them through the interpretation of pundits who typically have their own partisan agendas. Might as well just leave the pundits out of the loop.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21 2014, @06:28AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21 2014, @06:28AM (#71724)

      I wonder what would have happened if the "leader" had both appealed to emotion and worked in specific details: "We mourn today the tragic loss of a hundred and twenty Erehwonians, and we give our hearts and our support to the four hundred whose lives and bodies have been wounded by this disaster, but whose spirits remain unbroken."

    • (Score: 2) by zsau on Tuesday July 22 2014, @11:56PM

      by zsau (2642) on Tuesday July 22 2014, @11:56PM (#72546)

      The American Dream is for us and our children and our children's children. We can't do anything that would hurt the American Dream and destroy our children's chances of dreaming the same dream and seeing it come true. The American Dream is at great risk today. If we do nothing, the American Dream will be taken away from our children and the terrorists will win. We must do something. We must have a long term vision for the future. We must hold firm to what we've got today, to what our parents and our grandparents have fought and won for us.

      Vote for me. The other candidate(s) have not said what they will do. Their speeches have been absolutely devoid of any proposals because they do not have the wherewithal to do the hard work that is necessary to protect the American Dream. They intend to sell it to the highest bidder and subject us to an international government because the are corrupt and traitors.

      No-one else but me can save your home and your hope. And I'm not even an American citizen.

      • (Score: 1) by forkazoo on Wednesday July 23 2014, @05:14AM

        by forkazoo (2561) on Wednesday July 23 2014, @05:14AM (#72640)

        Shut up and take my money!