Can our language change our perception and our behaviour?
Is it possible that the language we speak affects what we see? What about something as basic as the colours we see...
If you speak Russian you would know that there is one distinct word for light blue pronounced ‘goluboy’ and one word for dark blue pronounced ‘siniy’. This is unlike English which has one word for ‘blue’ and we add adjectives to make it 'light' or 'dark'. Researchers discovered that because of this, Russian speakers when compared with English speakers, see more shades of blue and were faster at distinguishing the shades of blue!
On the other end of the spectrum, a tribe in Africa has only have three words for colours and so can easily distinguish shades of green but not the difference between green and blue. Have a look at the green squares in the image below - can you tell which one is different?
Scroll down to the end of this blog for the answer!
The African tribe can easily spot the difference in the green squares but have trouble on telling apart the green and blue in the image below. This brief documentary is brilliant and explains exactly what colours this tribe sees and why. When asked to find the blue square, the tribe had great difficulty in finding the blue one below.
Multiple studies suggest a simple change of words and our language changes and influences our perception.
Language can even affect our behaviour. In this TED talk by Keith Chen "Could your language affect your ability to save money?" he demonstrates how future based languages, like english, can make you worse at saving, more likely to be overweight or smoke compared with languages that are not future based, like Chinese. Future based languages enable us to do things tomorrow - ‘I will eat healthy tomorrow’ or ‘I will save money tomorrow’.
Language has a subconscious or unconscious impact on our perception of the world and ultimately, our behaviour and what we do. What we say and our self talk can have a profound impact on our lives and on the world.
Changing a few words in our daily life can shift our behaviour and influence our success and the success of others. Shifting language shifts perception and could be powerful to help us achieve our goals or change the world around us.
What words could change how you perceive the world and how you behave?
Language to Inspire Diversity in STEM
Diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) comes down to one thing - shifting perceptions about what STEM is. Many students think engineering is about maths and hard hats. If we can open up the possibilities and opportunities of these careers, and share what they really are, we can increase diversity.
There are some subtle changes in our language that can inspire different people. By talking about the kinds of people in STEM rather than talking about what people in STEM do, we will have more people say STEM is ‘for people like me’.
For example instead of saying people in STEM ‘build structures, write code, research genetics and analyse data’, researchers found saying people in STEM are ‘creative, organised, self-motivated and adaptable’ encouraged more women to consider these careers.
I trained a group of teachers in a Geelong school on how to use inclusive language when talking about STEM to their students. They trailed this when promoting their bridge competition to students. Usually they get all boys apply and after the change in language they had only girls apply!
Now, of course we need to get balance of both males and females and maybe we went too far, but it did show that a simple change of words can make a difference.
Now, what green square is different?
