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“Voter” vs. “Vote”: How one letter changed elections

Nudge

English - November 28, 2023 17:24 - 29 minutes - ★★★★★ - 146 ratings
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There’s an incredibly simple way to make your message more persuasive. In fact, it’s as simple as changing a letter. In today’s episode, Professor Christopher Bryan shares his studies on messaging. He’s convinced people to vote, persuaded children to tidy up, and students to stop cheating. How? By using nouns, over verbs. 

Sign up for the Nudge Newsletter: https://www.nudgepodcast.com/mailing-list
Chris’s study: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1103343108
Chris’s website: https://voices.uchicago.edu/bryan/
Be A Voter (Iowa video): https://youtu.be/YYY6tWR8qQk?si=8xxk6-DDl0_F_Lt9

*CORRECTION:  There’s a point where Christopher says that the average effect of a piece of GOTV mail is 2% pts. In fact, it’s half a percentage point. The 2% effect he was thinking of is the effect of receiving a GOTV phone call from a live human (i.e., not a robocall). 

There’s an incredibly simple way to make your message more persuasive. In fact, it’s as simple as changing a letter. In today’s episode, Professor Christopher Bryan shares his studies on messaging. He’s convinced people to vote, persuaded children to tidy up, and students to stop cheating. How? By using nouns, over verbs. 


Sign up for the Nudge Newsletter: https://www.nudgepodcast.com/mailing-list

Chris’s study: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1103343108

Chris’s website: https://voices.uchicago.edu/bryan/

Be A Voter (Iowa video): https://youtu.be/YYY6tWR8qQk?si=8xxk6-DDl0_F_Lt9


*CORRECTION:  There’s a point where Christopher says that the average effect of a piece of GOTV mail is 2% pts. In fact, it’s half a percentage point. The 2% effect he was thinking of is the effect of receiving a GOTV phone call from a live human (i.e., not a robocall).