The Secret Life of Pronouns_ What Our Words Say About Us - James W. Pennebaker [77]
DON BARZINI: Then we are agreed. The traffic in drugs will be permitted, but controlled—and Don Corleone will give up protection in the east—and there will be the peace.
DON TATTAGLIA: But I must have strict assurance from Corleone—as time goes by and his position becomes stronger, will he attempt any individual vendetta?
DON BARZINI: Look—we are all reasonable men here; we don’t have to give assurances as if we were lawyers …
In the next scene, Corleone is leaving the meeting in his limousine with his lawyer Tom Hagen. Hagen assumes that he will next meet with Tattaglia to discuss the details of the arrangement. Corleone interrupts him, indicating that the real decision maker is actually Barzini rather than Tattaglia: “Tattaglia’s a pimp … But I didn’t know until this day that it was Barzini all along.”
Whoa. How did the Godfather know that Barzini was the strongman? In the boardroom scene, Barzini appeared more at ease whereas Tattaglia was more rigid and nervous. The language of the two men also differed. Barzini’s dominant pronoun was we, whereas Tattaglia used the word I. The use of we-words is, in fact, a consistent indicator of high status and I-words of lower status. Although Mario Puzo, the author of The Godfather, didn’t know about pronoun research linking we-words to power and status, he intuitively knew how to shape the language of his characters.
If you hang around with a bunch of murderers, the ability to detect the real boss can save your life. In fact, knowing who is in charge of any group is adaptive. At work, those above us can promote or fire us. The journal editor can accept or reject our papers. With a warm smile or raised eyebrow, the high school cheerleader or football quarterback can make us popular or pariahs. As social animals, we are enmeshed in social hierarchies. We see them in ant colonies, dog packs, chimpanzee troops, elementary school playgrounds, boardrooms, and nursing homes. No matter what group we happen to be in, most of us are trying to fit in and, at the same time, seeking to have as much influence as possible.
There is something inherently unpleasant about the topic of social status. Being consciously aware of it seems, well, inappropriate. After all, most of us have been brought up to believe that we are all equal. Unfortunately, to paraphrase George Orwell, some people are more equal than others. The grim truth is that to be a healthy human being you must be attentive to social status. Indeed, those individuals who are most successful and happy in life are particularly good at decoding and working within social hierarchies.
FIGURING OUT WHO’S THE BOSS: DECODING SOCIAL HIERARCHIES
We have all found ourselves among a group of strangers who all know each other. Part of the puzzle of being the new guy is in trying to determine who is who and how everyone fits together. Some of the mental calculations involved in understanding the social hierarchy include figuring out who is the person in charge, who else may be new or uncomfortable in the situation. Two types of information are available—nonverbal and language cues.
NONVERBAL INDICATORS OF STATUS
A generation of researchers has tried to identify how people behave if they are high versus low in the social hierarchy. It isn’t as easy as it appears. In a thoughtful analysis of dozens of good scientific studies, Judith Hall of Northeastern University was able to identify only a small group of behaviors linked to status:
Loudness High-status people tend to talk more loudly than lower-status people.
Interruptions High-status people