Words to Submit by: Language Patterns Indicate Conference Acceptance for the International Communication Association

Markowitz, David M.

doi:10.1177/0261927x20988765

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 20 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Lexical fluency was operationalized by the rate of common words and specifically measured by the LIWC-22 dictionary category (for support, see Groom & Pennebaker, 2002; Markowitz, 2019, 2021a; Markowitz et al, 2021; Markowitz & Hancock, 2016; Markowitz & Shulman, 2021; Tausczik & Pennebaker, 2010), which helped to test the preregistered prediction that low rates of common words will associate with an increase in petition signatures and victorious petitions. High rates of common words are derived from high scores on the LIWC dictionary category, which contains “over 12,000 words, word stems, phrases, and select emoticons,” reflecting everyday common terms in written and spoken communication (Boyd et al, 2022, p. 5; Boyd & Schwartz, 2021; Tausczik & Pennebaker, 2010).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Instrumental goal activation increases online petition support across languages.

Markowitz¹

2023

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research on processing fluency and instrumental goal activation suggests people often perceive complex information positively when effort in a task is valued. The current article evaluates this idea in five online petition samples (total N = 1,047,655 petitions and over 200 million words), assessing how the linguistic fluency of a petition associates with support. Consistent with prior work, petitions with lower rates of lexical fluency (fewer common words) associated with more signatures and an increased probability of petitions making a concrete change than those with higher rates of lexical fluency (more common words). Exploratory results suggest other forms of linguistic complexity also associated with petition support: petitions with more analytic writing (e.g., more formal and complex writing patterns) and with less structural fluency (less readable writing) received more signatures than those with less analytic writing and more structural fluency. Controlling for the political leaning of the petition writers as inferred by their language patterns revealed consistent effects. Crucially, the lexical fluency results were maintained across eight languages as well. Various types of linguistic complexity are therefore instrumental to get people to support online causes. Contributions to fluency theory and the psychology of giving are discussed.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Instrumental goal activation increases online petition support across languages.

Markowitz¹

2023

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The effect size estimate we provide for verbal certainty is per-word effect size; therefore, the cumulative effect may be more substantially meaningful than what appears. We presupposed that certainty in science is a positive heuristic, but other research suggests that uncertainty is perceived positively (Karmarkar & Tormala, 2010;Markowitz, 2021). Evaluating the boundaries of certainty in science writing is important future work.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Tracing the Adoption and Effects of Open Science in Communication Research*

Markowitz

Song

Taylor

2021

Journal of Communication

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A significant paradigm shift is underway in communication research as open science practices (e.g., preregistration, open materials) are becoming more prevalent. The current work identified how much the field has embraced such practices and evaluated their impact on authors (e.g., citation rates). We collected 10,517 papers across 26 journals from 2010 to 2020, observing that 5.1% of papers used or mentioned open science practices. Communication research has seen the rate of nonsignificant p-values (p > .055) increasing with the adoption of open science over time, but p-values just below p < .05 have not reduced with open science adoption. Open science adoption was unrelated to citation rate at the article level; however, it was inversely related to the journals’ h-index. Our results suggest communication organizations and scholars have important work ahead to make open science more mainstream. We close with suggestions to increase open science adoption for the field at large.

show abstract

“…Verbal confidence. Finally, a measure of verbal confidence is derived from prior work (Markowitz, 2019(Markowitz, , 2021aMarkowitz, Song, et al, 2021). High rates of certainty terms (e.g., absolute, clear, obvious) and low rates of tentativeness terms (e.g., doubt, guess, wonder) indicate speakers with a confident style.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online Self-Presentation in Medicine: Self-Focused and Confident Physicians are Rated Positively by Patients

Markowitz¹

2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objectives: How physicians communicate can impact patient perceptions and health outcomes. Analyzing physician self-descriptions and language patterns can indicate their general psychological functioning and identify words that link to patient evaluations. To determine how the language patterns of physicians link to and affect patient evaluations, a field study using physician profiles from HealthGrades.com and a mixed design experiment were conducted.Setting: A large field study (N = 54,420 online profiles) analyzed physician self-descriptions and biographies, as a proxy for their general communication style and psychological makeup, in search of language patterns that associate with ratings by patients. Automated text analyses were performed (Study 1) and a mixed design experiment in Study 2 evaluated how language patterns change patient perceptions of physicians.Participants: Study 1 included 54,420 online profiles from HealthGrades, and Study 2 included 500 participants recruited from CloudResearch.Primary and secondary outcome measures: Automated text analyses in Study 1 evaluated how rates of common words, analytic thinking, self-references, emotion terms, and verbal confident related to a physician’s star rating on HealthGrades. The experiment in Study 2 evaluated how language differences associated with self-references and verbal confidence affected star rating, warmth, and competence perceptions.Results: In Study 1, physicians who communicate in a self-focused and certain manner tend to have higher overall ratings online. Those who discuss their expertise and compassion for patients are also rated more favorably. In Study 2, participants who read physician profiles with high rates of self-references and certainty terms rated doctors more favorably (e.g., warmer, more competent) than those who read physician profiles with low rates of self-references and certainty terms.Conclusions: Words are critical indicators of physicians’ psychological functioning and can change patient evaluations. Future research is needed to identify why certain patients might review physicians online and the mechanisms underlying changes in perceptions

show abstract

Words to Submit by: Language Patterns Indicate Conference Acceptance for the International Communication Association

Cited by 6 publications

References 20 publications

Instrumental goal activation increases online petition support across languages.

Instrumental goal activation increases online petition support across languages.

Tracing the Adoption and Effects of Open Science in Communication Research*

Online Self-Presentation in Medicine: Self-Focused and Confident Physicians are Rated Positively by Patients

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About