Study reveals the word that will make you more effective towards your interlocutors

Sometimes, one word is enough to change someone’s mind.

At least that’s what Jonah Berger — a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School — claims, who has compiled a list of “magic words” that can change the way you communicate.

Case in point, using the word “because” while trying to ask someone to do something seems to have an exciting effect. Speaking to CNBC, Berger explains that “more people will listen to you and do what you want.”

He points to a nearly 50-year-old study from Harvard University, where researchers sat in a university library and waited for someone to use the copier. They then walked up to him and asked him to stop so they could use it.

They phrased their question in three different ways:

• “Can I use the copier?”
• “Can I use the copier because I need to make copies?”
• “Can I use the copier because I’m in a hurry?”

Both questions containing the word “because” made people who were already using the machine 50 percent more willing to give up their seat, the researchers found.

Even the second sentence – which could be reinterpreted as “Can I get in front of you to take your seat?” — was effective because it showed that the stranger asking for a favor at least had manners.

“Persuasion is not driven by speech itself,” Berger points out in his book Magic Words, published last year. “It is guided by the power of the word,” he emphasizes.

Other “magic” words and their use

Companies use the word “because” to make their ads more persuasive, wrote behavioral scientist Nuala Walsh.

The six-letter word isn’t the only one with communicative superpowers. Arguments, requests, and presentations aren’t more or less persuasive when they’re based on solid ideas, Berger says—rather, they depend on the individual words you use.

“You could have great ideas, but great ideas won’t necessarily get people to listen to you,” he says. “Subtle changes in our language can have a really big impact.”

By saying and writing the word “recommend” instead of “like,” people are nearly a third more likely to follow your suggestions, Berger notes in his book. The same is true when you replace verbs with nouns, he says: people are up to 30% more likely to grant your requests when you ask for helpers instead of help or voters instead of votes.