Nguyen Allison, Fox Tree Jean E
Department of Psychology, University of California, 1156 High St, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA.
Department of Psychology, DeGarmo Hall, Illinois State University, 100 N University St, Normal, IL, 61761, USA.
Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2025 Sep 1;10(1):58. doi: 10.1186/s41235-025-00669-8.
Understanding how authority affects social evaluation of written communication is crucial for understanding how online communication technologies can be effectively deployed. We examined how negotiation words affected perceived ratings of knowledgeableness, professionalism, politeness, and friendliness across three levels of authority (professor, teaching assistant, student) while asking and answering questions in a mock online forum. The greatest distinction across groups was in professionalism. For professors and TAs, most negotiation words lowered professionalism, but this was not the case for students. The greatest similarity across groups was for the words clearly and obviously. Both made people appear less friendly and less polite. Compared to the unmodified condition, hedges (e.g., kinda) decreased knowledgeableness but boosters (e.g., absolutely) did not increase knowledgeableness. One negotiation word, totally, had a surprising pattern-it helped higher authority speakers appear more friendly.
理解权威如何影响书面交流的社会评价对于理解如何有效部署在线通信技术至关重要。我们在一个模拟在线论坛中提问和回答问题时，研究了协商性词汇如何影响在三个权威级别（教授、助教、学生）下对知识渊博程度、专业性、礼貌程度和友好程度的感知评分。各群体之间最大的区别在于专业性。对于教授和助教来说，大多数协商性词汇会降低专业性，但学生的情况并非如此。各群体之间最大的相似之处在于“清楚地”和“明显地”这两个词。这两个词都会让人显得不那么友好和不那么礼貌。与未修改的情况相比，模糊限制语（如“有点儿”）会降低知识渊博程度，但加强语（如“绝对”）并不会提高知识渊博程度。一个协商性词汇“完全地”呈现出一种惊人的模式——它有助于地位较高的说话者显得更友好。
