Conservatives Prefer Using More Nouns. Who Knew?

Some interesting research involving the US, Saudi Arabia and Poland has shown that social conservatives prefer to use nouns against liberals (On the Grammar of Politics - or Why Conservatives Prefer Nouns). Here is the abstract:

Previous research indicates that political conservatism is associated with epistemic needs for structure and certainty (Jost et al., 2003) and that nouns elicit clearer and more definite perceptions of reality than other parts of speech (Carnaghi et al., 2008). We therefore hypothesized that conservatives would exhibit preferences for nouns (vs. verbs and adjectives), insofar as nouns are better suited to satisfy epistemic needs. In Study 1, we observed that social conservatism was associated with noun preferences in Polish and that personal need for structure accounted for the association between ideology and grammatical preferences. In Study 2, conducted in Arabic, social conservatism was associated with a preference for the use of nominal sentences (composed of nouns only) over verbal sentences (which included verbs and adjectives). In Study 3, we found that more conservative U.S. presidents used greater proportions of nouns in major speeches, and this effect was related to integrative complexity. We discuss the possibility that conservative ideology is linked to grammatical preferences that foster feelings of stability and predictability.

No one really likes uncertainty, and that's why goddidit is such an psychologically powerful argument. And it should follow that our language reflects our psychology, which (as Haidt and others, such as Duval here at ATP show us) defines out politics.

The general discussion and concluding remarks follow:

The aim of this research program was to examine whether ideological proclivities are reflected in basic features of verbal communication. In two studies we obtained consistent support for the hypothesis that conservative political orientation is associated with a linguistic preference for nouns—parts of speech that are well suited to address epistemic needs for order and structure. This effect was observed when we examined ordinary speech patterns concerning various social topics (Studies 1 and 2) as well as political speeches in particular (Study 3). The effect was observed in two Indo-European languages (English, belonging to the Germanic subdivision, as well as Polish, belonging to the Slavic subdivision) and an Afro-Asiatic language (Arabic, belonging to the Semitic subdivision). These effects were fairly modest in terms of magnitude, but they were consistent despite the very different social, cultural, linguistic, and political contexts of the three countries in which these studies were conducted.

Moreover, in Studies 1 and 3 we demonstrated that these relationships can be at least partially explained by differences in cognitive styles and epistemic motives of liberals and conservatives. Conservatism is associated with lower integrative complexity and epistemic needs for structure, order, and certainty (Jost et al., 2003; Jost & Krochik, 2014; Wilson, 1973). Insofar as nouns have greater inductive potential (Carnaghi et al., 2008; Graf et al., 2013; Walton & Banaji, 2004), they are more compatible with cognitive parsimony and epistemic needs to reduce uncertainty and ambiguity, in comparison with other parts of speech (such as verbs or adjectives). Indeed, we observed that ideological differences in noun preferences were accounted for by individual differences in the personal need for structure (Study 1) and integrative complexity (Study 3).

The current research enhances our understanding of the psychological functions of language. Previous studies have linked the use of nouns to stereotypical and essentialist thinking (Carnaghi et al., 2008; Howell & Woolgar, 2013). We observed that a preference for nouns was associated with the motivation to create and maintain simple structure (Neuberg et al., 1997) as well as decreased integrative complexity (Brundidge et al., 2014). Decisiveness was unrelated to grammatical preferences (Study 1). This overall pattern of results suggests that a preference for nouns might address needs for specific, rather than nonspecific, forms of closure. It would seem that nouns support and maintain preexisting cognitive structures by categorizing (social) objects so that they are in line with prior beliefs. Overall, our results are compatible with previous work suggesting that language reflects, among other things, the individual’s goals and motives (Douglas & Sutton, 2003), including his or her political goals (Menegatti & Rubini, 2013).

Our findings are also consistent with previous research indicating that political conservatives tend to score lower in integrative complexity than liberals (e.g., Brundidge et al., 2014; Jost et al., 2003; Tetlock, 1983, 1984; Thoemmes & Conway, 2007). Like Kossowska and van Hiel (2003), we observed that the personal need for structure (but not decisiveness) was a significant predictor of social conservatism. Insofar as social conservatism focuses on the safeguarding of familiar and predictable social structures, it may be that it is also better suited to address needs for specific (vs. nonspecific) closure. A different pattern of results emerged for economic attitudes. Decisiveness—the facet of the need for closure scale that corresponds to the need for nonspecific closure (Neuberg et al., 1997)—was associated with support for free market capitalism (cf. Malka et al., 2014). It is conceivable that the need for nonspecific closure would be especially important when political systems are in transition, as in post-Communist Poland. Even after 20 years, public opinion carries considerable ambivalence about the previous and current social systems in Poland (Cichocka & Jost, 2014). Study 1 was conducted with university students, who are less likely to have experienced Communism themselves. For them, the free-market system is highly salient and accessible and therefore presumably well-suited to satisfy the need for nonspecific closure (cf. Kossowska & van Hiel, 2003)....

Concluding Remarks

In this article, we have sought to shed new light on linguistic processes associated with political ideology. We have demonstrated that political ideas and opinions seem to be reflected in subtle cues, such as grammatical preferences and linguistic biases. Bringing in the perspective of ideology as motivated social cognition allowed us to demonstrate that the relationship between politics and language can be explained, at least in part, by psychological processes such as cognitive style and epistemic motivation. Findings from these studies encourage us to revisit Devlin’s (1910/2004) advice on speaking and writing style in a more discerning light: referring to things by their names, rather than describing them in terms of their features, preserves familiarity, stability, and tradition—all of which seem to be more highly valued by conservatives than liberals.