Choose Your Words Carefully
Do people listen to an argument and then decide what they think of it or are there mechanisms in the brain which, when triggered by the use of value-laden language, prevent further consideration?
In "Right or Wrong? The Brain's Fast Response to Morally Objectionable Statements" the authors found that words that are inconsistent with the reader's values almost immediately caused the reader to make a judgment about the statement being made. In fact, the readers often made sense of, or in other words judged, the statement before the sentence containing the value-laden word(s) was even completed.
The take away is that one misplaced word can destroy the best argument if it triggers a moral objection.
