How the words shape the world we live in

Some time ago I came across with an article that was describing a study about the power that words have to shape our mood, our emotions and our action. I don`t remember the name of the study or the University that was conducting this experiment so if you remember, fell free to share in the comments any information or link.

The subjects were divided in two groups and they were not informed about the real goal of the study. Instead, they were asked to read and correct a text. First group had a text that contained a lot of words like: old, gray, cloudy, heavy, tired, and sad and so on. The second one had a text with words like: young, energetic, powerful, light - you`ve got the idea.   

Then, they were asked to go to another office, in the same building and now cams the interesting part: the researchers measured the time that the subjects needed to arrive at that office. The subjects from the old-gray-rain-cloudy-tired-and-sad group were slower than the subjects from the young-energetic-powerful-light group.

It may seem like a not so important experiment, and definitely not one that will provoke a big aha-moment. After all, is not so hard to imagine that after being exposed to something that has an emotional impact on us we tend to respond according to that impact.

We experiment this all the time, after we watch the news – sometime we feel literary heavy or powerless after watching some of the bad news…

What this experiment was emphasizing was that even something apparently very insignificant, like some lines in a book, can have an enormous influence, even is a more subtle one.

Words can change our mood and feelings. They can change our image about the world. They can change our reaction to what is happening. The (or our reaction) can change our world. And our lives.

Imagine if a simple story about an old man, with gray hair, that was sad and tired can make us to feel a little bit down, imagine then what an “it is your fault!” or “you are worthless” can do.  

And remember that many of us use the words in this way almost every day! Most of us use a language that in its core is violent, without even being aware about this. It is a language that takes most of the joy of life away, even without using the old-gray-sad-cloudy vocabulary. A language that denies responsibility and disconnects us from what is alive in us.

In the next post I will put a comparative table between the main language that we use in the day-by-day life and the NVC language.