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this podcast is brought to you by
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knowledge of Wharton
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[Music]
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welcome to knowledge of Wharton I'm
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Angie bassini do you remember when your
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sixth grade English teacher told you
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that it was better to write your essay
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with active verbs well she was onto
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something Warden marketing Professor
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Jonah Berger is here with us today to
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talk about his latest study on how verb
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tense can shape consumer persuasion
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which incidentally is the title of his
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paper jota welcome thanks so much for
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having me
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I wanted to quote a sentence to get us
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started from your paper and I think it's
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a great a great one quote while almost
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everything consumers do involves
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language researchers are only starting
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to examine how words Shake attitudes in
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Behavior
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so I wanted to pull the sentence out
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because I thought why did you want to
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study something as specific as verb
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tests
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you know I don't know if you've had this
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experience but we're all writers right I
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mean we may not write books or novels or
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plays but we're writing all the time
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right uh you know every day we're
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writing emails or writing PowerPoint
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presentations Word documents and a
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variety of types of content
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um and as an academic I also write
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academic papers and so one thing I
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wanted a couple years ago is well look
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some academic papers are really
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impactful others aren't uh obviously
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some of this is the ideas right some
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ideas are better and others are less
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good but could something beyond the the
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quality of the idea namely how that idea
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is presented also shape its impact right
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the way we write uh even some of that
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academic research shape shape uh its
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impact and so a couple years ago we did
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a project on this we looked at thousands
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of academic articles the number of
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citations they received and looked at
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whether writing shaped citations and we
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found that it did and we found one thing
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in particular that was a little
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surprising to me was that tense matter
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um and I hadn't even really thought
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about verb tense before so maybe I'll
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talk a little about what tense means for
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for a second you know we can talk about
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things in the past tense or the present
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tense so we can talk about the same
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thing we can say you know this book had
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a great plot or this book has a great
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plot right had being the past has been
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present
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um if someone
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um uh asks you about you know what a
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vacation that you took or something like
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that you could say well France was
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really fun or France is really fun we
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often get a choice about whether we can
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use the past or or the present tense
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um uh you know the the study found or
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the study finds uh for example um and so
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we found there that writing uh one tense
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versus the other could have an impact
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and so we started wondering well maybe
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would this generalize this is just
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something nuanced about academics and
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academic research or might you know in
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in our marketing world might the way we
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use tests have an impact like the way we
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write online reviews or sales pitches
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um or ads might whether we use the
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present tense or the past tense shape
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how persuaded Our People by our a
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message
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uh when I was reading the paper I was
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thinking about different uh ad slogans
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and changing them in my head to past
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heads and the one that popped into my
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head was what happens in Vegas stays in
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Vegas which would not work nearly as
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well if it was what happened in Vegas
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stayed in Vegas so yes so there's a
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there's a the key takeaway here is that
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a simple shift in verb tense can make
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your message more effective why how how
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does that work in the brain how is it
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just that one thing that makes a
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difference yeah so let's talk about past
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tense for a second so so if someone said
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um you know that book had a great plot
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um you know Vegas was fun
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um uh you know this product won an award
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all these things it suggests that this
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particular person for example with the
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book that they like the book when they
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read it or they enjoyed Vegas or France
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or whenever they what it was when they
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visited and because experiences are
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naturally subjective right it also
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suggests that it was their experience
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Not only was it their experience when
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they went in the past class but it was
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their personal and I experience when we
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say the present tense though we're doing
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a little bit more generalizing right
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when we say France is fun uh it says
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well not only was it fun when I went
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that particular time a few years ago not
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only did I find it fun but when I'm
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willing to say well France is fun it
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suggests well everyone would find it fun
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whenever they went right it suggests
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it's a more general idea it's in some
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sense it's an assertion right uh same
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thing you know when we say
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um the book is great the book is
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interesting it suggests not as it was
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when I read it but it is and will be uh
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in the future
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um and so when we when we use the
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present tense people go wow you're
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willing to generalize beyond your own
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personal experience in the past to
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generalize to people Beyond yourself and
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to what's more likely to happen moving
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forward well you you must be more
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certain right you must be more confident
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if you're willing to say not just that
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France was fun but it is fun not just
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this book had great plot but it has a
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great plot when you're going
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generalizing beyond the past suggest
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you're more confident or certain about
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what you're saying and as a result
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people are more likely to follow up on
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your opinion and be persuaded it makes
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the audience feel included in your
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message
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a little bit and it also makes you just
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seem more confident right if you're
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willing to go beyond your experience
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right and suggest something that others
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will experience as well people go well
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it must it must be really good you must
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be so confident about how good it is how
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right it is uh that that I'll be more
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likely to take that action how did you
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go about studying this yeah so we
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started uh as I as I often like to do in
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research with field data so in this case
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we looked at thousands of online reviews
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about books right so imagine you go to
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amazon.com think about all the reviews
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there for a given book and so we
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downloaded over a hundred thousand
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different reviews and controlling for
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all sorts of other different things
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which book it was for and why the people
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like the book or not and what topics
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they talked about we found that hey
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writing that review the more sentences
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in that review that use present tense
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the more useful people found it and that
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was interesting right we thought that
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was pretty powerful but we could say
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well maybe that's just books right books
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are something you you know you um maybe
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you consume in a certain way maybe it's
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just specific Vector books and so we
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looked at another category we looked at
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music some of you might say well books
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are only something you read once whereas
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music you consume more often maybe it
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wouldn't hold for music nope same thing
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for music so we looked at over a hundred
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thousand music reviews when reviews used
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present tense other people found it more
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useful and were more persuaded by it you
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might say well that's nice but maybe
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it's just you know enjoyable stuff like
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books and music maybe it wouldn't matter
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in other more sort of technical domains
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but we looked at Electronics Consumer
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Electronics headphones keyboards other
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sorts of things same effect there as
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well maybe it's just about products
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right maybe it wouldn't hold in Services
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right to Yelp and looked at restaurant
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reviews same thing there and so across
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all these different domains across the
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different categories writing in the
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present tense increased impact and so
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that was interesting but we said well
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maybe you can't be sure it's causal
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maybe it's just some sort of correlation
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so some experiments we took exactly the
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same thing and for some people we talked
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about in the present tense and other
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people we talked about in the past tense
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we found that even in that situation
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tight control present tense made it more
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persuasive even something like the
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results of a scientific study right so
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um this has a certain Impact versus had
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a certain impact people think a drug is
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going to be more effective in the future
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they're more interested in adopting a
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weight loss plan when you use things
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like present tense rather than past
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so this has application just sort of
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across a bunch of different domains
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marketing advertising just writing in
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general
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um it seems to me you know obviously the
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big message here is use present verbs uh
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is it that simple is that the is that
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the trick the secret sauce is there
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something else you're now telling us
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when I think about research I think the
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best research takes something that's big
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and important and shows that you can
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have an impact on it in a meaningful way
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with something that's not too difficult
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to do and so I don't mean to suggest
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that we can always talk about things in
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present tense right if someone asks you
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did you study for the test you can't say
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I am you know if you studied it's in the
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past so you can't change that because
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that is studying happened in the past
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unless you are currently studying you
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can't talk about how you uh are
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currently presently studying it if
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you're not that's it in many cases we
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have a choice right so I'm an automobile
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manufacturer for example in my car I'm
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uh was voted uh you know Car of the Year
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in a certain category well it was voted
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but it also is Car of the Year currently
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right I have a choice I can say it was
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voted car there it is car of the year I
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should probably say it is because it's
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going to be more persuasive you know I'm
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a doctor talking to a patient right uh
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rather than saying it had a 90 success
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rate saying it has a 90 success rate
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it's going to make people think it's
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more efficacious and make them more
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likely to to do it and so we can't use
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this all the time in all cases but this
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again is a situation where shuttle
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shifts in language can have a important
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impact on Behavior thank you so much I
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consider you the word master so before
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you go I do want to mention your fourth
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book it's called magic words how to what
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to say to get your way which is the
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power I think all of us would like to
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have you could download it anywhere that
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you download books Jonah thanks for
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being here with me today thanks so much
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for having me if you enjoyed this
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conversation you can find more just like
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it on our website where you can also
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find all our articles on the latest
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research in business for knowledge of
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warden I'm Angie bassini thanks for
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joining us
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for more insight from knowledge of
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Wharton please visit
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knowledge.warton.upen.edu
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[Music]
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thank you
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[Music]
