How you use nouns and adjectives is likely to correlate with your political leanings

[Erik_Kowal]

According to an article in The Independent's publication Indy 100, new research published in the journal Political Psychology by Dr Aleksandra Cichoca of the University of Kent suggests that the way a person uses nouns and adjectives is indicative of how right- or left-wing they are:

In two studies we obtained consistent support for the hypothesis that conservative political orientation is associated with a linguistic preference for nouns.

Another interesting prospect is that political inclinations are affected by subtle linguistic cues, so that exposure to more abstract language could shift the receiver's political orientation in a conservative direction, at least under some circumstances. To the extent that conservative politicians use more nouns than liberal politicians in political speeches, this may serve a strategic function.

Noun forms may also turn out to be more persuasive to conservatives than liberals.



Take this three-question quiz, and see if Dr Cichoca's prediction is correct in your case. Then please come back here and post the result.

[tony h]

It was correct in my case but possibly swayed because I had read the article before taking the test.

Also I wondered about the use of "guess" in the request to "take the quiz and see if we can guess ... ". Surely the research is supposed to move the result away from being "a guess" to being : a calculation, a prediction, an estimation etc

[Phil White]

Wrong for me.

Problem is, the linguistic aspects mentioned are largely an effect of social class, education, professional experience and age, all of which also affect ones political allegiances, so it is no surprise to see a correlation between language and political leanings. In my case, my political allegiance does not tally traditionally with my other background, so the conclusion is flawed.

[Wizard of Oz]

I was a yes. I think.

WoZ the sceptical