Research Hit: Communication - Why"Not" is Not Effective - or Just Plain Bad
Research shows that negating with "not" may not have the desired effect!
Isn’t this one of your communication tips?!
Yes, I have been using this tip for literally decades now. So feel kind of satisfied, but also frustrated, that science has proven what I have been saying for nigh on 25 years - or more. Obviously, I’m also not the only person that has been saying this.
And what precisely does science say about “not”
So my advice has been instead of using a grammatical negative such as this is “not good”, use a negative word such as “this is bad” or vice versa.
And you say, science has now proven this?
Yes, indeed, a paper just out by Arianna Zuanazzi et al. of New York University, has explored this question combined with brain imaging.
And what did they find?
The study included 78 adults who read and interpreted statements and sentences with and without grammatical negatives and underwent brain scanning while doing this also.
They found that:
Negated adjectives are processed more slowly and with more varied interpretations.
Initial brain activity for negated adjectives is similar to affirmative ones but weaker.
Which is basically what I have been saying - it is processed like the positive word because this is the word that carries the meaning and only then negated.
So what does this mean?
Be careful when using negatives. This is common in many areas, in business “ We do not expect…”, in general life “I didn’t do that…”, “Don’t panic…”, “Don’t forget…”, in politics “The elections weren’t rigged…”
So my advice is alway think of what the message you want to give and find the actual word to mean that - avoid using grammatical negatives.
Instead of “Don’t panic!”, say “Stay calm!” Instead of “Don’t forget to…” say “Remember to…”
Don’t politicians do that anyway?
Sometimes - known as spin. They rephrase everything as positive for themselves and everything as negative for the opposition irrespective of what. But then again if you watch carefully, as I often do, you will still see a lot of mistakes in communication.
Business and business leaders though are often very bad at this - using grammatical negatives far too often and unconsciously sending the wrong message. Of note, this is even more important during times of crises because the brain has limited processing abilities.
I have considered this one of the simplest mistakes to correct in communication irrespective of where.
So be positive, or negative but don’t use negatives - of the grammatical kind that is
Precisely - and happy to see that my top tips are finally being proven. There is also another nice way to use grammatical negatives that I advise - but I’ll leave that top tip to my clients.
Oh, you are teasing us now!
Yes, I still need to keep some of my top tips as top secret tips!
Reference
Zuanazzi A, Ripollés P, Lin WM, Gwilliams L, King J-R, Poeppel D
Negation mitigates rather than inverts the neural representations of adjectives.
PLoS Biol 22(5): e3002622.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002622