The impact of “smart words” on impression formation: Evidence from evaluations of employment suitability

Individuals use others’ language as a cue when making inferences about their characteristics and traits. Here, we investigated whether this applies to the use of “smart words”, or advanced, sophisticated words assumed to make one sound smart. Participants rated employment suitability of fictitious job applicants based on cover letters that included either a small number of smart words (e.g., “quixotic”) or their regular counterparts (e.g., “impractical”). The results showed that smart words had a significant positive impact on all evaluations of applicants’ skills and personal/intellectual attributes (e.g., relevant experience, decisiveness, aptitude for learning). This finding adds to the growing literature on the role of language in impression formation, and suggests that using as few as eight smart words in a cover letter, in place of less sophisticated synonyms, can put the applicant at a considerable advantage when looking for employment.