Controlling the narrative: Euphemistic language affects judgments of actions while avoiding perceptions of dishonesty

The present work (N = 1906 U.S. residents) investigates the extent to which peoples' evaluations of actions can be biased by strategic use euphemistic (agreeable) and dysphemistic (disagreeable) terms. We find that participants' are made more favorable replacing a disagreeable term (e.g., torture) with semantically related agreeable enhanced interrogation) in an act's description. Notably, influence terms was reduced (but not eliminated) when making less ambiguous providing participants detailed description each action. Despite their influence, judged both action descriptions as largely truthful distinct from lies, agents using such trustworthy moral than liars. Overall, results current study suggest speaker can, through careful language, sway opinions others preferred direction while avoiding many reputational costs associated subtle forms linguistic manipulation lying). Like much-studied phenomenon “fake news,” manipulative language serve tool for misleading public, doing so falsehoods but rather language.