Words that Set Us in Motion: Nouns Versus Other Grammatical Forms as Linguistic Cues for Behavior—A Meta-Analytic Review
Marta - Witkowska, Caterina Suitner, Magdalena Formanowicz, Joanna Dołżycka · 2022
Recent discoveries suggested that nouns are a word class having the special power to model real-life behavior. In the research by Bryan et al. (2011), participants exposed to the wording being a voter (noun label) were more likely to register and vote than those exposed to the wording voting. In follow-up research (Bryan et al., 2013), a cue don’t be a cheater proved significantly more effective than don’t cheat. However, many attempts to replicate the original results have proven unsuccessful (e.g., Gerber et al., 2016; 2018). To shed light on the effectiveness of subtle linguistic manipulations, we conducted a meta-analysis of 28 experimental studies (N = 13,376), being an exact or conceptual replications of Bryan et al. (2011). Although the average effect of the existing studies was significant (g = 0.12), it was small and the concurrent diagnostics indicated a low trust in the replicability or stability of the effect due to the high probability of publication bias. Based on that, we cannot conclude that the greater effectiveness of nouns as cues has been reliably proven. We discuss future research and theoretical prospects that were uncovered through the meta-analysis of the accumulated data.