The predictive utility of word familiarity for online engagements and funding

When Fears Come True: An Experimental Approximation of Patient Comprehension During Initial Cancer Diagnoses

An experiment (N = 624 U.S. adults) was designed to approximate how well patients attend to information during a cancer-related doctor visit. To make this assessment, we manipulated mortality salience (present, absent) and language complexity (simple words, complex words) to understand whether these factors impact newly diagnosed patients' ability to attend to relevant treatment information. Message attention was measured through a comprehension quiz and a signal detection task. We found that a state of heightened mortality salience slightly improved message comprehension. We also found that language simplicity in an article about skin cancer treatment improved comprehension and attention, particularly under conditions of high mortality salience. These findings suggest that practitioners should use simple language when discussing health care options with their patients.

From complexity to clarity: How AI enhances perceptions of scientists and the public's understanding of science

This article evaluated the effectiveness of using generative AI to simplify science communication and enhance the public's understanding of science. By comparing lay summaries of journal articles from PNAS, yoked to those generated by AI, this work first assessed linguistic simplicity differences across such summaries and public perceptions in follow-up experiments. Specifically, study 1a analyzed simplicity features of PNAS abstracts (scientific summaries) and significance statements (lay summaries), observing that lay summaries were indeed linguistically simpler, but effect size differences were small. Study 1b used a large language model, GPT-4, to create significance statements based on paper abstracts and this more than doubled the average effect size without fine-tuning. Study 2 experimentally demonstrated that simply-written generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) summaries facilitated more favorable perceptions of scientists (they were perceived as more credible and trustworthy, but less intelligent) than more complexly written human PNAS summaries. Crucially, study 3 experimentally demonstrated that participants comprehended scientific writing better after reading simple GPT summaries compared to complex PNAS summaries. In their own words, participants also summarized scientific papers in a more detailed and concrete manner after reading GPT summaries compared to PNAS summaries of the same article. AI has the potential to engage scientific communities and the public via a simple language heuristic, advocating for its integration into scientific dissemination for a more informed society.

Numeric social-media posts engage people with climate science

Innumeracy (lack of math skills) among nonscientists often leads climate scientists and others to avoid communicating numbers due to concerns that the public will not understand them and may disengage. However, people often report preferring to receive numbers; providing them also can improve decisions. Here, we demonstrated that the presence vs. absence of at least one Arabic integer in climate-related social-media posts increased sharing up to 31.7% but, counter to hypothesis, decreased liking of messages 5.2% in two preregistered observational studies (climate scientists on Twitter, N  > 8 million Tweets; climate subreddit, N  > 17,000 posts and comments). We speculated that the decreased liking was due, not to reduced engagement, but to more negative feelings towards climate-related content described with numeric precision. A preregistered within-participant experiment (N = 212) then varied whether climate consequences were described using Arabic integers (e.g. "90%") or another format (e.g. verbal terms, "almost all"). The presence of Arabic integers about consequences led to more sharing, wanting to find out more, and greater trust and perceptions of an expert messenger; perceived trust and expertise appeared to mediate effects on sharing and wanting to find out more. Arabic integers about consequences again led to more negative feelings about the Tweets as if numbers clarified the dismaying magnitude of climate threats. Our results indicate that harnessing the power of numbers could increase public trust and concern regarding this defining issue of our time. Communicators, however, should also consider counteracting associated negative feelings-that could halt action-by providing feasible solutions to increase people's self-efficacy.

Reading dies in complexity: Online news consumers prefer simple writing

Over 30,000 field experiments with The Washington Post and Upworthy showed that readers prefer simpler headlines (e.g., more common words and more readable writing) over more complex ones. A follow-up mechanism experiment showed that readers from the general public paid more attention to, and processed more deeply, the simpler headlines compared to the complex headlines. That is, a signal detection study suggested readers were guided by a simpler-writing heuristic, such that they skipped over relatively complex headlines to focus their attention on the simpler headlines. Notably, a sample of professional writers, including journalists, did not show this pattern, suggesting that those writing the news may read it differently from those consuming it. Simplifying writing can help news outlets compete in the competitive online attention economy, and simple language can make news more approachable to online readers.

Tracking group identity through natural language within groups

To what degree can we determine people's connections with groups through the language they use? In recent years, large archives of behavioral data from social media communities have become available to social scientists, opening the possibility of tracking naturally occurring group identity processes. A feature of most digital groups is that they rely exclusively on the written word. Across 3 studies, we developed and validated a language-based metric of group identity strength and demonstrated its potential in tracking identity processes in online communities. In Studies 1a-1c, 873 people wrote about their connections to various groups (country, college, or religion). A total of 2 language markers of group identity strength were found: high affiliation (more words like we, togetherness) and low cognitive processing or questioning (fewer words like think, unsure). Using these markers, a language-based unquestioning affiliation index was developed and applied to in-class stream-of-consciousness essays of 2,161 college students (Study 2). Greater levels of unquestioning affiliation expressed in language predicted not only self-reported university identity but also students' likelihood of remaining enrolled in college a year later. In Study 3, the index was applied to naturalistic Reddit conversations of 270,784 people in 2 online communities of supporters of the 2016 presidential candidates-Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The index predicted how long people would remain in the group (3a) and revealed temporal shifts mirroring members' joining and leaving of groups (3b). Together, the studies highlight the promise of a language-based approach for tracking and studying group identity processes in online groups.

The Importance of Project Description to Charitable Crowdfunding Success: The Mediating Role of Forwarding Times

The COVID-19 outbreak has been a public health crisis of international concern, causing huge impact on people's lives. As an important part of social public crisis management, how to quickly and effectively raise resources to participate in emergency relief in the era of self-media is a common challenge faced by global charitable organizations. This article attempts to use empirical evidence from Tencent charitable crowdfunding platform, the largest charitable crowdfunding platform in China, to answer this question. We consider 205 COVID-19 charitable projects and 11,177,249 donors to assess the process by which non-profit organizations raise funds through the information about project descriptions. Based on the effects of information and emotional framing, we explore the effects of the readability (i.e., complexity and understandability) and negative tone of the project description on fundraising amount. We then investigate the mediating role of forwarding times, as affective response to the text might explain forwarding times, which in turn affects money raised by increasing the visibility of the campaign. On this basis, the moderating role of recipient's crisis involvement is tested during this process. The empirical results indicate that the complexity of the description will reduce the fundraising amount, while understandability and negative tone help to improve it. Furthermore, we found that forwarding times played an important mediating role in this process. Then the buffer effect of crisis involvement on the negative effect of complexity was validated, and its amplification on the positive effects of understandability was also verified.

Authentic First Impressions Relate to Interpersonal, Social, and Entrepreneurial Success

This article examines how verbal authenticity influences person perception. Our work combines human judgments and natural language processing to suggest verbal authenticity is a positive predictor of interpersonal interest (Study 1: 294 dyadic conversations), engagement with speeches (Study 2: 2,655 TED talks), entrepreneurial success (Study 3: 478 Shark Tank pitches), and social media engagements (Studies 4a–c; N = 387,039 Tweets). We find that communicating authenticity is associated with increased interest in and perceived connection to another person, more comments and views for TED talks, receiving a financial investment from investors, and more social media likes and retweets. Our work is among the first to evaluate how authenticity relates to person perception and manifests naturally using verbal data.

Psychological trauma and emotional upheaval as revealed in academic writing: The case of COVID-19

The current paper used a preregistered set of language dimensions to indicate how scientists psychologically managed the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects. Study 1 evaluated over 1.8 million preprints from arXiv.org and assessed how papers written during the COVID-19 pandemic reflected patterns of psychological trauma and emotional upheaval compared to those written before the pandemic. The data suggest papers written during the pandemic contained more affect and more cognitive processing terms to indicate writers working through a crisis than papers written before the pandemic. Study 2 (N = 74,744 published PLoS One papers) observed consistent emotion results, though cognitive processing patterns were inconsistent. Papers written specifically about COVID-19 contained more emotion than those not written about COVID-19. Finally, Study 3 (N = 361,189 published papers) replicated the Study 2 emotion results across more diverse journals and observed papers written during the pandemic contained a greater rate of cognitive processing terms, but a lower rate of analytic thinking, than papers written before the pandemic. These data suggest emotional upheavals are associated with psychological correlates reflected in the language of scientists at scale. Implications for psychology of language research and trauma are discussed.