Word Choice Affects Social Judgments: Relational Messages Containing Low-Frequency Words Get Low Evaluations

Prior research found a <i>word complexity effect</i>: Authors who use complex words are less favorably received when writing academic essays, business letters, and other relatively formal communications. The present study tested if word choice affects evaluations of messages between friends (Experiments 1-2) and spoken messages (Experiment 2). Three widespread dimensions of social judgments were studied - namely, persuasiveness, competence, and sincerity. Participants read/heard messages that varied (between-participants) by ordinary versus low-frequency words (<i>sad</i> vs. <i>forlorn</i>). Messages containing low-frequency words (mostly) received lower evaluations. Most importantly, word choice effects in messages between friends were consistently found - for both written and spoken language. Feedback analysis (Experiment 2) revealed that the overuse of "big vocabulary" conflicts with conscious social beliefs regarding ways to communicate, showing that social judgments spring from a combination of conscious social beliefs and the relatively unconscious influence of fluency.