Power and vulnerability: Managing sensitive language in organisational communication

Healey, P. G.T., Khare, P., Tyson, G., Karan, M., Castro, I., Shekhar, R., McQuistin, S. , Perkins, C. and Purver, M. (2024) Power and vulnerability: Managing sensitive language in organisational communication. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1266425. (doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1266425)

Abstract

Organizational responsibilities can give people power but also expose them to scrutiny. This tension leads to divergent predictions about the use of potentially sensitive language: power might license it, while exposure might inhibit it. Analysis of peoples' language use in a large corpus of organizational emails using standardized Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) measures shows a systematic difference in the use of words with potentially sensitive (ethnic, religious, or political) connotations. People in positions of relative power are ~3 times less likely to use sensitive words than people more junior to them. The tendency to avoid potentially sensitive language appears to be independent of whether other people are using sensitive language in the same email exchanges, and also independent of whether these words are used in a sensitive context. These results challenge a stereotype about language use and the exercise of power. They suggest that, in at least some circumstances, the exposure and accountability associated with organizational responsibilities are a more significant influence on how people communicate than social power.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: The author(s) declare financial support was received for theresearch, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This project was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through the project “Streamlining Social Decision Making for Improved Internet Standards” (EP/S033564/1and EP/S036075/1). MP was also partly supported by the Slovenian Research Agency via research core funding for the programme Knowledge Technologies (P2-0103) and the project Sovrag (Hatespeech in contemporary conceptualizations of nationalism, racism, gender and migration, J5-3102).
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: McQuistin, Dr Stephen and Perkins, Dr Colin

Creator Roles

McQuistin, S.: Data curation, Methodology, Software, Writing – review and editing
Perkins, C.: Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing – review and editing

• Authors: Healey, P. G.T., Khare, P., Tyson, G., Karan, M., Castro, I., Shekhar, R., McQuistin, S., Perkins, C., and Purver, M.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• Journal Name: Frontiers in Psychology
• Publisher: Frontiers Media
• ISSN: 1664-1078
• ISSN (Online): 1664-1078
• Copyright Holders: Copyright: © 2024 Healey, Khare, Castro, Tyson, Karan,Shekhar, McQuistin, Perkins and Purver
• First Published: First published in Frontiers in Psychology 14: 1266425
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence

Project Code	Award No	Project Name	Principal Investigator	Funder's Name	Funder Ref	Lead Dept
304292		Streamlining Social Decision Making for Improved Internet Standards	Colin Perkins	Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)	EP/S036075/1	Computing Science