Depending on the language used in articles describing health issues and advice, people tend to change their evaluation of the information. The more positive is the language, the less credible the text seems.
People don’t believe positive information, prefer neutral
There is plenty of advice online and people tend to first check the Internet when they are interested in something.
However, how the information is presented influences the perception about its credibility.
The more neutral language is used, the more trustworthy the advice appears.
In the study, participants were reading articles with basically identical information, but one was using overly positive language (excellent, outstanding, etc.) while the other was written in a rather neutral tone. The neutrally styled texts scored way higher in perceived credibility of the source.
The author of the article written in positive terms also got lower scores in goodwill, integrity, and trustworthiness.
Another surprising aspect was that some people were getting texts as written by someone from a pharmaceutical company, while the other part of the group thought the article was authored by a university researcher. Participants weren’t influenced in this case; it was the style of the article that caused difference in evaluations but not the occupation of the author, in this case.
Thus, if it’s about professional advice, people seem to trust neutrality over positivity.
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