Are we being manipulated by the words we hear — and the ones we use? In this episode, marketing and psychology professor Sam Maglio unpacks the hidden signals embedded in everyday language, from why abbreviations can make you seem insincere to how tense and voice subtly shape what we believe. Listen in and how small shifts in wording influence perception, persuasion and even behaviour — and how to keep your inner psycholinguist on alert.

Show notes

[0:00] Ever feel like the words you hear are manipulating you? That’s because, in some cases, they are.

[0:53] Meet Sam Maglio, a professor of marketing and psychology at the University of Toronto.

[2:01] When it comes to the words we use, we’re probably not being critical enough about what we’re saying.

[3:03] More often than not, what we’re saying isn’t being interpreted by the recipient in the way we mean (this is partially because we’re bad at perspective taking).

[4:56] How does capitalization influence our perception of gender?

[5:37] Abbreviations can make us seem less sincere.

[7:43] Speaking in present tense makes us more believable…

[8:50] …so does speaking in active voice.

[9:25] But speaking in passive voice can give us an air of authority.

[10:52] What does this all mean? Well, words are manipulative. This can be good; one famous study told a group of housekeepers at a hotel that they were exercising rather than working, and without making any other changes, that group lost weight.

[12:10] But it can also be used to subtly sway your ability to believe in things like climate change.

[12:36] We live in tech-bubbles that supercharge the spread of misinformation, which is bad when you think about the mere exposure effect.

[13:17] So we need a bit of self-reflection to protect ourselves from being manipulated.

[13:38] “I think part of it starts with being aware of how our psychology plays tricks on us. Our psychology makes us want to click on the clickbait, even though we might know it's not true. How many studies have you heard where people will post things or retweet things or like things, and they haven't even read the article, because if the world is on fire, then damn it, everyone needs to know that the world is on fire. Take a breath before that and like not be part of the problem, because it's very easy for a thump to turn into an echo, to turn into a chorus of all sorts of negative things.”

Why do markets dip after the clocks change? Why do investors become more risk averse in the fall? And what does this mean for your portfolio? We like to think we’re rational investors. We’re not. On the latest episode, professor Lisa Kramer explores how hidden behavioural biases influence our portfolios — and even shift global markets.

Show notes

Show notes

[0:00] Humans tend to overestimate our abilities. We tend to think of ourselves as better than average.

[0:33] Meet Lisa Kramer, a professor of finance at the University of Toronto, and an expert in the psychology of financial decision-making.

[1:20] While thinking we’re better than average benefits us in certain situations — think dating and job hunting — it can be detrimental to our finances.

[2:13] This over-confidence is clearest when people try to outperform the stock market.

[2:56] But beyond internal biases, there are also external factors that influence our financial decisions.

[3:19] Lisa and her colleagues studied how the clock changes influenced the market as a whole and found that the day after the clocks changed, stock markets tumbled. But why?

[5:30] Seasonal changes — like the shift to winter — also make us more risk averse, en masse.

[7:16] Lisa’s research shows this isn’t just in the stock market; investors sought out safer products, like mutual funds and treasury bonds, in the winter.

[8:44] What does this mean for companies?

[9:28] Will AI save us (hint…not so much).

[10:29] And can the average investor do anything to mitigate these biases (hint…not so much).

[12:30] “The best we can do is educate people that these are common biases, and get people to think about decisions that they've made in their own lives and self-evaluate the extent to which maybe they've been subject to these biases.”

#MeToo forced Hollywood to reckon with its past — but did it actually change the future of filmmaking?

Looking at years of behind-the-scenes and on-screen data, associate professor Hong Luo explores how the wide-spread social movement did — and did not — change movie-making; how stigma, coordination and market-wide shocks influence organizational behaviour; and why large-scale movements can create opportunities for change that just weren’t profitable or possible before.

Show Notes

Show notes

[0:22] It’s been nearly a decade since the New York Times broke the news of Harvey Weinstein’s abuse of women in Hollywood, sparking the #MeToo movement, which called out multiple men in the film and TV industry.

[1:28] Meet Hong Luo, an associate professor of strategic management at the Rotman School of Management, who studies how industry-wide innovation happens. So, in the wake of #MeToo, she turned her attention to Hollywood.

[2:49] Women are underrepresented behind the camera in Hollywood – and while many factors contribute, widespread sexual abuse is among one of the reasons.

[3:36] To determine whether #MeToo had the power to change the film industry, she looked at how film teams associated with Harvey Weinstein changed compared to those not associated with him.

[4:37] Producers with a history of working with Weinstein were more likely to hire female talent behind the camera after the #MeToo movement than those without.

[5:55] Lots of reasons probably drove the change, but Hong hypothesizes that the publicity and associated guilt helped the change along.

[6:54] One key finding; projects that had at least one woman on the creative team were more likely than those without to make it to theatre.

[8:06] After the behind-the-camera shift, Hong wanted to know if more female-fronted stories were told.

[8:31] If the team behind the scenes was all male, then yes – they were more likely to produce a movie with a female lead. But if the team had a woman, then no – they were more likely to work on male-fronted stories.

[9:11] This is likely a result of how people felt the need to respond in the face of widespread social pressure.

[9:39] All-male teams tended to develop female characters that conformed to traditional gender stereotypes.

[10:53] Ok, so #MeToo changed Hollywood; what does that mean for other industries? Well, to really understand how social movements can spur innovation, let’s look also at the medical device industry.

[12:18] Social movements let industries capitalize on a need for change that would have otherwise been too expensive or unprofitable before.

[14:16] But when the movement wanes, momentum of the change also falters.

[14:38] But for advocates, the long game is probably worth it: “The literature shows that when you actually have more female talent in a particular field, especially if those talent could use that opportunity to gain experience and gain track record…then we may actually sustain more longer run change.”