Why some messages are more convincing than others

(Press-News.org) What kinds of marketing messages are effective — and what makes people believe certain political slogans more than others? New research from the University of California San Diego Rady School of Management explores how people constantly evaluate whether messages are true or false and finds that a surprisingly small ingredient — whether a word has an easy opposite — can shape how confident people feel when deciding whether a message is true.

“Effective messaging isn’t just about whether people agree with a claim — it’s about how confident they feel in that judgment,” said Giulia Maimone, who conducted the research while a doctoral student at UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management. “Understanding how language shapes that sense of certainty helps explain why some messages resonate more than others.”

Confidence — not just agreement — shapes how persuasive a messages is The study, forthcoming in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, reveals that the persuasiveness of a message can hinge on the type of words it uses — specifically, whether those words have clear opposites. The research shows that when companies frame a message with words that are “reversible,” meaning they have an easily retrievable opposite (such as intense/mild or guilty/innocent), people who disagree with the claim tend to mentally flip it to the opposite meaning (for example, “The scent is intense” becomes “The scent is mild”). 

Why words with clear opposites are processed differently The study shows that this difference matters because people handle disagreement in different ways. When a message uses a word with a clear opposite, rejecting the claim requires an extra step retrieving and substituting the opposite word which makes people feel less certain about their opposing belief. But when a word doesn’t have a clear opposite, people tend to negate them by simply adding “not” to the original word (for example, “not prominent” or “not romantic”). In those cases, the study finds that skeptics tend to feel more confident in their counter-belief, making those messages less effective overall. 

A strategic advantage for marketers “For marketers, this creates a powerful advantage: by using easily reversible words in a positive affirmation — such as ‘the scent is intense’ —  companies can maximize certainty among those who accept the claim while minimizing certainty among people who reject the message, because they tend to feel less strongly about their opposing belief ” said Maimone, who is now a postdoctoral scholar in marketing at the University of Florida. “Our study highlights a subtle but influential linguistic mechanism that helps explain why some marketing and political messages are more effective than others.”

That’s why this matters for marketing. If a company uses a simple, positive claim with an easily reversible word — like “the scent is intense”—most consumers who believe it feel confident in that belief. But even the consumers who disagree tend to feel less sure about their own negative conclusion because flipping the message to the opposite (“it’s mild”) takes extra mental work. In other words, the wording can strengthen the intended message because it can soften the pushback.

“People don’t just decide ‘true’ or ‘false’ — they also form a level of certainty that affects how persuasive a message becomes,” said Uma R. Karmarkar, study coauthor and associate professor at UC San Diego’s Rady School and the School of Global Policy and Strategy.

Testing the effect outside the lab In a field test with Facebook ads created in collaboration with a nonprofit, the team found that ad language designed to trigger the higher-confidence processing pathway produced a higher click-through rate than language designed to trigger the lower-confidence pathway.

“Language isn’t just how we communicate — it can be a strategic lever,” said On Amir, study coauthor and professor of marketing at the Rady School. “The right wording can help an intended message land more firmly — and make the counter-belief feel less certain.”

How the researchers studied belief confidence To reach these conclusions, the researchers conducted two controlled experiments involving more than 1,000 participants who were asked to judge whether a variety of statements were true or false and then report how confident they felt in those judgments. By systematically varying the wording type of the statements — and measuring both response time and confidence — the team was able to isolate how different types of language trigger distinct cognitive processes that shape belief certainty.

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