By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm:
Damned if it isn’t true: People who swear are more honest, and perceived as more persuasive. According to a recent Psyblog post, that is indeed what the research shows. The most recent study on the subject (Feldman et al., 2017) looked at both self-reports as well as an analysis of Facebook communications to demonstrate that a greater use of profanity correlates with greater honesty. An earlier study (Scherer & Sagarin, 2006) shows that, in addition to actually being more honest, the person who swears is also viewed that way, with the addition of a ‘damn it’ at the end of a message increasing perceived intensity and influence. Why would socially disapproved language add influence? Well, according to one of the authors in the 2017 study, Dr. David Stillwell, it has to do with a connection between lower filtering and greater honesty. When someone is letting the bad words slip through, Stillwell writes, “they are not filtering their language so they are probably also not putting their stories about what is going on through similar filters which might turn them into untruths.”
So, apparently, it is a matter of authenticity. If you come across as more direct, then you’re less likely to be seen as filtering your language or carefully and insincerely picking a position. Now, of course, this research is unlikely to be applied literally by an attorney or a witness in court. Swearing up a blue streak in the courtroom is likely to end up with a My Cousin Vinny-style quick trip to jail for contempt of court. But if we look at the results a little more broadly, it isn’t that people like swearing, it is that they like the perception of less- filtered communications. Dropping filters promotes perceived honesty. That, I think, is a broader point that attorneys and witnesses can take into the courtroom: Drop filters by showing that you are, to a small extent at least, stepping out of the formality and expectations of a contrived position. In this post, I will share a few ways you can do that…without swearing.
Safe Ways to Drop the Filter
In court, you can gain credibility by sending the message that you are lowering the filters they expect an advocate or a witness to apply. There are a few safe ways to do this.
Be More Honest than Expected
Your jurors in the courtroom are going to expect a certain kind of communication. They’ll expect positions, advocacy, argument. They’ll expect you to say that everything about your case is good and everything about their case is bad. But even in the best-case scenario, it is unlikely that a jury will end up in that place. So where you can gain credibility by acknowledging something jurors would have concluded anyway — a strength on their side or a weakness on yours — you may as well do so.
Say Some Bad Things about Yourself
An honest admission about a weakness can surprise jurors, encourage them to take a fresh look, and let them know that what you’re presenting is honest and not filtered. Embracing a central weakness of your case, “steering into the skid,” so to speak, can be great strategy.
Say Some Good Things about Them
If you’re not all good, then chances are, the other side isn’t all evil. And finding something you can endorse about the other side sometimes improves your case as well. In an employment case, for example, a defendant’s endorsement of the qualities of a plaintiff can help explain why they were hired in the first place.
Be More Conversational than Expected
The trial takes place in a formal environment that can be compared to a civic church, steeped in ritual and formality. In that setting it is easy to sound legalistic and restrained. Consciously setting that aside in order to build a genuine conversational rapport is a way of dropping the formal filter and projecting the kinds of honesty that we look for and expect in our normal lives.
Use a Conversational Tone
The starting point for being conversational is your tone of your voice. Does it sound like you are presenting a prepared position, or does it sound like you are just talking? The more you can avoid the stiff cadence of recitation and adopt the rhythms, pauses, pitch variation, and emphasis that you have when chatting across a coffee table, the more direct and unfiltered you will appear to be.
Use a Conversational Vocabulary
The law carries its own vocabulary, and despite recent efforts to convert that vocabulary into ‘plain English,’ the language the law expects is often opaque. The more you can provide translations and applications in teaching those concepts, the better. Also, avoid distance and formality. For example, beginning an answer with “I would say…” sounds filtered, like you are picking a position.
Use a Conversational Frame of Reference
The law creates its own frame of reference through procedure, law, and jury instructions. But in the deliberation room, that frame is often disrupted by another reference point: common sense. In emphasizing the legal tests, burdens, and standards, look also for the psychological expectations jurors will bring on their own. You are most likely to find that reference point where the issues of the case intersect with jurors’ own life experience.
The overall goal is to convince your audience that they aren’t getting a selective and filtered view of you or your case, they are getting the real deal.
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Other Posts on Credibility:
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Feldman, G., Lian, H., Kosinski, M., & Stillwell, D. Frankly, we do give a damn: The relationship between profanity and honesty. Social Psychological and Personality Science. Url: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550616681055
Image credit: 123rf.com, used under license