Nine Words That Could Raise Congress's Approval Rating

Americans loathe Congress more than colonoscopies, root canals, or Genghis Khan, but according to a team of Canadian researchers, the men and women of Congress might not have to actually get anything done to work their way back into our good graces. They just need to speak differently.

As explained by a report published in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, Congressional approval appears to follow whether or not members of the House of Representative are using enough "prosocial language," or words and word stems that "tend to convey content about collective interests and interpersonal harmony."

The researchers looked at all 123,927,807 words spoken in the House of Representatives between 1996 and 2014, and looked for the density of "prosocial words," such as "accepting," "empower," "solidarity" and the like. They found that when the frequency of "prosocial language" dropped, six months later Congress's approval rating with the public would follow, even after you adjust for things like whether or not Congress is actually passing bills or the unemployment rate being low.

The nine words that the researchers found could most strongly predict public opinion were "gentle, involve, educate, contribute, concerned, give, tolerate, trust, cooperate." So basically, if Congress was a lot more like Sesame Street, we'd like it more. On that level, it makes sense.

And on a scientific level, the researchers explained their findings by referring to research from 2007 that reports people who are perceived as warm and competent "elicit uniformly positive emotions and behavior," while people who lack warmth and competence elicit negative behavior. It's a little disconcerting that we care more about whether or not we perceive Congress as warm and competent, rather than measuring their competence based on what they actually do, though.

The team of Canadian researchers aren't fully sure why this is: just because something's being broadcast on CSPAN doesn't mean that it's being watched by enough people to form public opinion. It could be that journalists who shape public opinion sour on Congress, informing their writing and turning us against them. The researchers also allow that public approval could be changing the topics that Congress raises, or that language is the canary in the Congressional coal mine—the language changes as Congress moves towards doing a worse job.

Still, language was a better predictor of approval rating than number of bills passed or the public's confidence in the economy or the unemployment rate. Oddly, the language that the president uses isn't nearly as strong of a predictor of his approval rating, though the sample size for things that the president says is also way smaller.

In any case, with only one in 10 American voters saying that Congress is doing a good or excellent job, and 59 percent giving it a poor rating, it might be well past the time for Washington to consider updating its vocabulary.