How to Get Ahead by Speaking Vaguely

Contractors intimidate me because they make things and I cannot. Whenever I speak to one, I wind up asking lots of questions that make me seem powerless, such as “Where exactly is my attic?” And so last week, when a contractor came by to offer advice on renovating the bathrooms, I panicked.

Fortunately, a study called “Using Abstract Language Signals Power,” published this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, shows that projecting power is incredibly simple. Just communicate in abstractions. Details convey weakness. In one of the seven experiments, participants read quotes from a politician who described an earthquake as killing 120 and injuring 400; later, when he simply said it was a national tragedy, subjects thought he was a better leader.