Abraham Harrison executive, Saul Wainwright, brought an amazing radio news article to my attention, The Truth of False, which addresses what I have known forever: the truth is always what people remember and people generally associate the words used when messaging — color and tone — with the final perception, be it positive or negative. (Thanks Saul)
If someone says, “Chris Abraham doesn’t suck,” you’ll come away with, “Chris Abraham sucks.” Better to say, in response to “Chris Abraham sucks,” “Chris Abraham is a generous and loving child of God.” Better, right? Rule 1: Never Adopt Your Enemy’s Language!
People assume that their memories serve them with truth. When doing online messaging or counter-messaging, I go back to quote the maestro, Frank Luntz, “It’s not what you say it’s what people hear,” where I add, “It’s not what you say it’s what people remember,” finally adding, “It’s not true unless people remember it as true and it isn’t false unless people remember it as false.”
Here’s a book recommendation: Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear by Frank Luntz
Transcript of The Truth of False
BOB GARFIELD: Americans may or may not be as sleep-deprived as drug makers claim, but if it were a myth you could try to quash it with the truth. That’s what the Centers for Disease Control Prevention recently did. They sent out a flyer listing various facts and myths about the flu vaccine and labeled them “true or false.” But a study at the University of Michigan found that the CDC flyer actually did nothing to change people’s minds and may have even spread vaccine myths to more people.
Shankar Vedantam, a reporter for The Washington Post, explains that right after reading the flyer, people mostly remembered the false statements as false.
SHANKAR VEDANTAM: But about 30 minutes later, older people started to remember some of the false statements as true, and three days later, very large numbers of older people and significant numbers of younger people also started remembering increasing numbers of myths as true.
The true statements did not suffer the same kind of deterioration with time. In other words, over time we tend to remember false things as true but not true things as false.
BOB GARFIELD: Hmm — well, I guess there’s some hope in that. By what mechanism is this taking place?
SHANKAR VEDANTAM: The mind relies on a number of rules of thumb, and one of the rules of thumb that it uses is that things that are more easily recalled are true even if the context in which they originally heard the statement was that the statement is false.
BOB GARFIELD: Now, if I understand your piece, when people hear a statement involving a negative – let’s say Saddam was not connected to 9/11 – and they hear it often enough, somehow the “not” disappears.
SHANKAR VEDANTAM: That’s right. What happens, unfortunately, is our denial of the myth ends up repeating the myth and makes the myth itself more accessible to people’s memory. And furthermore, as the separate study that you note points out, what happens very often is that the “not” in the sentence essentially falls off with time in many people’s memories.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: I want to ask you, then, about truth-squadding, since we’re in the midst of political races. Here’s the scenario: politician A makes horrendous charges against politician B, essentially lying about the opposition. A vigilant reporter notices this and does a truth-squadding article in the newspaper that says, no, this campaign ad is simply not true for the following reason. And politician B, of course, immediately starts attacking politician A for misrepresenting his or her record. Who wins?
SHANKAR VEDANTAM: I think invariably it’s going to be politician A. When you have people who are systematically trying to manipulate you, spread propaganda, for instance, and they repeat the same information over and over again, the fact that we are not very good at remembering where we heard a particular piece of information, we tend to believe that we have heard the information from multiple independent sources and therefore it must be true, rather than from the same untrustworthy source over and over again.
BOB GARFIELD: Now, the studies you’re talking about suggest that these effects take place irrespective of the bias of the listener. But there’s another study that suggests that if you are, in fact, predisposed to have a certain world view that misinformation sticks still more. Can you describe it?
SHANKAR VEDANTAM: There’s a new study that’s just been completed by Jason Reifler at Georgia State University where he actually looks at questions such as why it is that large numbers of people continue to believe that weapons of mass destruction were present in Iraq before the invasion or even found in Iraq after the invasion.
And what Jason and his colleagues did was try and give people the correct information. And what he found, ironically, is that partisans who wanted to believe that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, when told about the correct information, ended up believing ever more fervently that they were right and that the correct information was wrong.
BOB GARFIELD: And this would explain, for example, why, throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds, more than half of the population seems to believe that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were the work of the U.S. government or Israel.
SHANKAR VEDANTAM: I think that’s right. What’s especially disturbing is that the number of people who believe that is actually growing over time. In the study I mentioned, 59 percent of Turks and Egyptians, 65 percent of Indonesians, 53 percent of Jordanians, even 56 percent of British Muslims do not believe that Arabs were behind the 9/11 attacks.
And so presenting them with the correct information, which, by the way, is our government’s strategy of combating myths and disinformation, does not seem to be a very effective approach.
BOB GARFIELD: So the truth will out, except when it doesn’t.
SHANKAR VEDANTAM: [LAUGHS] I guess you can say that. One thing that I should mention, Bob, is that when you’re trying to deny a falsehood, perhaps the most effective way of doing that is by not mentioning the original falsehood at all.
In other words, if someone said that Bob Garfield is for child prostitution, the right response is not Bob Garfield is not for child prostitution, but, rather, to say Bob Garfield is an upstanding journalist who believes in the finest tenets of journalism and runs a very popular show that’s heard widely by many millions of people around the world.
BOB GARFIELD: Ah — so, in other words, to replace one lie with another.
[LAUGHTER]
Shankar, thank you so much.
SHANKAR VEDANTAM: Thanks so much, Bob.
BOB GARFIELD: Shankar Vedantam is a reporter and columnist at The Washington Post.
More Info on Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear by Frank Luntz
From Publishers Weekly
After repeating his mantra—”it’s not what you say, it’s what people hear”—so often in this book, you’d think that Republican pollster Luntz would have taken his own advice to heart. Yet in spite of an opening anecdote that superficially attempts a balanced tone, the book as a whole truly reads more like a manual for right-wing positioning. Even in the sections where he is less partisan, Luntz’s advice is not particularly insightful. For instance, his first chapter, on “Ten Rules of Effective Language,” starts by instructing readers to use small words and short sentences in their communications. The least effective section in the book is the chapter on “Personal Language for Personal Scenarios,” where Luntz advocates manipulative strategies for getting out of traffic tickets, boarding airplanes at the last minute and apologizing to one’s wife with the “miracle elixir” of flowers. The most readable and redeeming feature is the two case studies, where Luntz demonstrates his skill as a communicator by identifying real-world communications successes and failures. Unfortunately, by the time nonpartisan readers reach these chapters, they will have already lost patience. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.From AudioFile
Luntz, an advisor to many political and corporate leaders, reads an impressive introductory chapter before narrator L.J. Ganser spells out the author’s 10 characteristics of effective communication: simplicity, brevity, credibility, consistency, novelty, sound and texture, inspirational language, vivid pictures, questions, and context and relevance. In the introductory chapter and in a concluding interview, Luntz is a powerful speaker. He knows how to anchor his ideas in the larger cultural context. Expressing his ideas with remarkable skill, he’s a pugnacious thinker who is not afraid to be blunt but is always respectful of how his voice and ideas are heard. In perfect sync with these qualities, L.J. Ganser’s determined enunciation moves the rest of the pithy material along with clarity. T.W. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine– Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine –This text refers to the Audio CD edition.Wall Street Journal
“Words That Work deserves an attentive read. Mr. Luntz offers a fair amount of good advice to anyone who must communicate publicly–most important, “be the message.” By this he means that if you want to talk the talk and be believed, you must walk the walk–which is to say, you must mean what you say and act on it. Integrity sells.”As the book develops, Mr. Luntz’s “words that work” turn out to be portals for his clients to think hard about what they and their opponents stand for and how to align their positions more closely with what their audiences actually care about. This isn’t hocus-pocus. It’s just the result of hard work, careful thought and empathy–the staples of all intelligent public discourse.”Senator John Kerry
“Frank Luntz understands the power of words to move public opinion and communicate big ideas.”Steve Wynn
“If you can’t afford to hire Frank Luntz, you have to read Words that Work.”Tony Robbins
“a MUST read!”The (London) Sunday Telegraph
“The pollster has a long track record of identifying the phrases that make or break political and corporate campaigns . . .”Chris Matthews
“Dr. Luntz, you are a freaking genius. The book is called Words That Work and you’re always right.”Washington Post.com
“One of the nation’s leading pollsters and political language specialists.”Washington Post.com
“One of the nation’s leading pollsters and political language specialists.”Financial Times
“Few political consultants can boast as many strings to their bow at such a young age as Frank Luntz. When he was barely in his thirties, the Republican wordsmith played a critical role in devising the Contract With America, which helped Newt Gingrich’s Republican party win control of both houses of Congress for the first time in more than a generation….”It is a fair bet that Luntz will play an influential role in the 2008 election, possibly in service of his old friend the former mayor of New York.“Words That Work is Luntz’s attempt to distil what he insists is his intrinsically honourable profession between two covers. To a large extent it works. Even where Luntz is protesting a bit too loudly – that negative attacks on political opponents rarely work, for example, and that, by implication, Luntz has never been involved in such skulduggery – he is always readable.
“Part lexicographic memoir, part self-help book, Words That Work shines when the accent is on the former. It is hard to think of any other political consultant in America who has coined as many effective slogans as Luntz. Some, such as his branding of the estate, or inheritance, tax as the “death tax”, have remoulded conventional wisdom with devastating effect on their principally Democratic defenders.
“Others have crept into common usage less dramatically but just as effectively. Take “exploring for energy” instead of “drilling for oil”, “tax relief” in place of “tax cuts”, or “not giving” emergency hospital care to “illegal aliens” instead of “denying” it to “undocumented workers”. Words, or rather the slicing and dicing of them to fashion our subliminal responses, do work, particularly when tried and tested in Luntz’s two-hour “dial sessions”, where volunteers convey their responses by turning a dial up or down in reaction to what they are seeing and hearing.
“Luntz has produced a fine book that teaches us a great deal about politics in today’s America and about the minutely analysed mindset of the electorate. That Luntz’s words are effective there can be little doubt.”
Financial Times
“Few political consultants can boast as many strings to their bow at such a young age as Frank Luntz. When he was barely in his thirties, the Republican wordsmith played a critical role in devising the Contract With America, which helped Newt Gingrich’s Republican party win control of both houses of Congress for the first time in more than a generation….“It is a fair bet that Luntz will play an influential role in the 2008 election, possibly in service of his old friend the former mayor of New York.
“Words That Work is Luntz’s attempt to distil what he insists is his intrinsically honourable profession between two covers. To a large extent it works. Even where Luntz is protesting a bit too loudly – that negative attacks on political opponents rarely work, for example, and that, by implication, Luntz has never been involved in such skulduggery – he is always readable.
“Part lexicographic memoir, part self-help book, Words That Work shines when the accent is on the former. It is hard to think of any other political consultant in America who has coined as many effective slogans as Luntz. Some, such as his branding of the estate, or inheritance, tax as the “death tax”, have remoulded conventional wisdom with devastating effect on their principally Democratic defenders.
“Others have crept into common usage less dramatically but just as effectively. Take “exploring for energy” instead of “drilling for oil”, “tax relief” in place of “tax cuts”, or “not giving” emergency hospital care to “illegal aliens” instead of “denying” it to “undocumented workers”. Words, or rather the slicing and dicing of them to fashion our subliminal responses, do work, particularly when tried and tested in Luntz’s two-hour “dial sessions”, where volunteers convey their responses by turning a dial up or down in reaction to what they are seeing and hearing.
“Luntz has produced a fine book that teaches us a great deal about politics in today’s America and about the minutely analysed mindset of the electorate. That Luntz’s words are effective there can be little doubt.”
Book Description
The nation’s premier communications expert shares his wisdom on how the words we choose can change the course of business, of politics, and of life in this countryIn Words That Work, Luntz offers a behind-the-scenes look at how the tactical use of words and phrases affects what we buy, who we vote for, and even what we believe in. With chapters like “The Ten Rules of Successful Communication” and “The 21 Words and Phrases for the 21st Century,” he examines how choosing the right words is essential.
Nobody is in a better position to explain than Frank Luntz: He has used his knowledge of words to help more than two dozen Fortune 500 companies grow. He’ll tell us why Rupert Murdoch’s six-billion-dollar decision to buy DirectTV was smart because satellite was more cutting edge than “digital cable,” and why pharmaceutical companies transitioned their message from “treatment” to “prevention” and “wellness.”
If you ever wanted to learn how to talk your way out of a traffic ticket or talk your way into a raise, this book’s for you.
About the Author
Dr. Frank Luntz is one of the most respected communication professionals in America. With his firm, Luntz Maslansky Strategic Research, he has conducted more than 1,500 surveys and focus groups for corporate, public affairs, and political clients in twenty countries. Luntz lives in McLean, Virginia.
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