Goldberg and Carmichael (2017)

# Goldberg and Carmichael (2017) <h4>Language complexity</h4> "information that people can easily process (e.g. simple language) is judged more favorably than information that is difficult to process (e.g., complex language; for a review, see Reber et al., 2004)." Manipulations of processing fluency: "perceptually (e.g. small font; Gervais & Norenzayan, 2012) and conceptually (e.g. complex language; Shockley & Fairdosi, 2015; Shepherd & Kay, 2012)." This study focused on conceptual level ~ language complexity <h4>effects of language complexity:</h4> rating authors' intelligence (Oppenheimer, 2006) " The effect remained robust regardless of the actual quality of the essay, or prior beliefs about the quality of the essay." fluent brand names have higher stock market prices the perpetuation of ignorance: "complex language motivates people to avoid learning more about the issue—an effect termed" (Shepherd & Kay, 2012) "when the content of a message is simple and easy to comprehend, people judge the message based on its merit (i.e., they take the central route to persuasion) rather than on peripheral cues, such as the status of the source (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Hafer, Reynolds, & Obertynski, 1996)." "easily processed information carries more weight in people’s judgments than information that is difficult to process." <h4>Previous studies to this study</h4> (Shah & Oppenheimer, 2007; Shockley & Fairdosi, 2015) "complex language makes information difficult to process and therefore affects judgment of the attitude object. " "...people’s judgments should be more extreme when the policy is in simple language because it is easier for people to process their agreement or disagreement with the policy." <h3>Hypothesis</h3> "people’s pre-existing policy preferences will determine how language complexity affects their judgment of a policy proposal." "... people will judge a preference-consistent policy more favorably when it is simple than when it is complex and will judge a preference-inconsistent policy less unfavorably when it is complex than when it is simple." "complex language makes information difficult to process and therefore affects judgment of the attitude object. However, ... it makes people weigh the information less heavily (Shah & Oppenheimer, 2007). the influence of language complexity depends on whether or not one agrees with the policy." "... the influence of language complexity depends on whether or not one agrees with the policy." <h4>Predictions by hypothesis</h4> "a simple preference-inconsistent policy can more easily be processed as inconsistent with one’s current beliefs than a complex one." 1. Interaction of language complexity and preference consistency" When people have no policy preference, we expect them to judge the policy more favorably when it is simple than when it is complex (Shockley & Fairdosi, 2015). " 2. No main effect of language complexity: "the effect of complexity to reverse depending on whether the policy is consistent or inconsistent with the participant’s initial policy preference" 3. There is main effect of policy preference: "preference-consistent policies will be rated more favorably than preference-inconsistent policies" ###### tags: `EXPPSY_Book`