Effortful language and the perception of apology sincerity

Dynamic iconicity refers to context-dependent relationships between a word’s form and the speaker’s intent.

Unlike fixed sound-meaning associations, dynamic iconicity arises during communication—words that are longer or harder to produce may be chosen to signal greater effort, leading listeners to interpret them as more sincere, meaningful, or emotionally invested in specific contexts like apologies.

Lev-Ari, S. Sorries seem to have the harder words. British Journal of Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12790

Key Points

• Focus: This study explores how speakers use longer words in apologies to signal greater sincerity, proposing a new concept called dynamic iconicity—a context-dependent relationship between word form and communicative intent.
• Method: Two studies were conducted: a corpus analysis of tweets (Study 1) and an experiment where participants rated apologies (Study 2). The sample included tweets from 50 individuals (celebrities and non-celebrities), and 49 UK English-speaking participants took part in the rating task.
• Findings: In Study 1, apologies used longer words than other tweets. In Study 2, apologies with longer words were judged as more sincere. Word frequency had no significant effect in either study.
• Implications: Lexical choices may function as social signals that convey effort and sincerity. This challenges assumptions of arbitrariness in language and expands the scope of research on iconicity.

Rationale

Traditional accounts of language view form-meaning mappings as arbitrary, yet research on iconicity shows that some words sound like what they mean.

This study goes further by introducing dynamic iconicity, where word choice is guided by context-specific communicative intentions rather than inherent semantics.

Specifically, the author asks whether people choose longer words in apologies to signal sincerity through greater production effort—a cost that enhances credibility.

Prior studies show that sincere apologies are often costlier, such as involving compensation or personal effort.

However, little attention has been given to whether the form of the message itself (e.g., word length) can carry this signal.

This research addresses that gap by testing whether longer or less frequent words are used and interpreted as signs of effort and sincerity in apologies.

Method

• Study 1 involved a corpus analysis comparing 50 apology tweets with 500 control tweets from the same individuals. The tweets were analyzed for word length and frequency.
• Study 2 was an experiment where 49 participants ranked apology sentence triads varying systematically in word length and frequency. The triads were semantically similar but differed in ease of word production.

Procedure

• Study 1:
  • Identified 50 public apologies (25 celebrities, 25 regular users)
  • Extracted 10 control tweets per individual (total 550 tweets)
  • Preprocessed tweets: removed usernames, hashtags, stopwords
  • Calculated median word length and average word frequency using Subtlex US norms
  • Used sentiment analysis to control for emotional tone
• Study 2:
  • Created 9 apology sentence triads, each with:
    • Short high-frequency words
    • Short low-frequency words
    • Long low-frequency words
  • Participants dragged and ranked each apology by how sincere it sounded
  • Included attention checks using obviously insincere sentences

Sample

• Study 1: 50 Twitter users (25 celebrities, 25 regular individuals). Age, gender, and ethnicity not specified.
• Study 2: 49 participants (after excluding 2 for attention failures), all native English speakers from the UK, recruited via Prolific.

Measures

• Word Length: Median number of letters per word in each tweet (Study 1); average per apology sentence (Study 2)
• Word Frequency: Mean log frequency (Subtlex US) of words in each tweet or sentence
• Apology Sincerity Ratings: Participants ranked sentences from most to least apologetic (Study 2)
• Sentiment Analysis: Used in Study 1 to control for emotional valence (sentimentr package)

Statistical Measures

• Study 1:
  • Mixed-effects models with Content Type (Apology vs Control), Celebrity Status, and their interaction as fixed effects; individual user as a random effect
  • Word Length: Significant effect for apology tweets (β = −0.85, t = −4.87)
  • Word Frequency: No significant effect
• Study 2:
  • Intercept-only mixed-effects models to test ranking differences
  • Long vs Short Apologies: Longer words ranked as more apologetic (β = 0.34, t = 2.59)
  • Word Frequency: No significant effect (β = −0.17, t = −0.82)

Results

• Apologies contained longer words than non-apology tweets, independent of celebrity status
• Emotional tone did not explain the word-length difference
• Removing typical apology words (e.g., “sorry”, “apologize”) still yielded the same results, suggesting the effect is not due to word semantics
• Participants judged longer-worded apologies as more sincere
• Word frequency had no significant effect on either production (Study 1) or perception (Study 2)

Insight

This research introduces and validates dynamic iconicity—the idea that speakers use more effortful word forms (e.g., longer words) to signal sincerity in context-dependent ways.

This contrasts with traditional views that associate iconicity with fixed word-meaning relationships. The findings suggest that people may intuitively select words based on how much effort they wish to convey, and that listeners pick up on this signal.

Importantly, the effort of producing long words does not burden the listener, unlike low-frequency words, which may explain why only word length mattered.

This adds a new dimension to pragmatics and politeness theory, opening pathways for research into how effort shapes communication in other contexts, such as praise, requests, or condolences.

Clinical Implications

• Therapists and mediators might encourage clients to use more elaborate or effortful language when offering apologies, as this may foster reconciliation
• Policymakers and public relations teams could craft apology statements that subtly incorporate longer words to increase perceived sincerity
• Educators can integrate insights from this study into teaching about communication effectiveness, especially in contexts involving conflict resolution
• However, overuse may appear inauthentic or scripted—thus, balance is crucial

Strengths

This study had several methodological strengths, including:

• The concept of dynamic iconicity is novel and grounded in robust theoretical and empirical frameworks
• Use of real-world data (tweets) increases ecological validity
• Careful controls for emotional tone and semantic similarity rule out alternative explanations
• Study 2 used pre-validated stimuli and verified statistical differences in word length and frequency
• Transparency through pre-registration and open data sharing enhances reproducibility

Limitations

This study also had several limitations, including:

• Study 2 stimuli were not perfect synonyms; subtle meaning differences could affect sincerity ratings
• Participants judged apologies in isolation, without social or conversational context
• Judgments of sincerity may not directly map onto apology acceptance or relationship repair
• All data were written and in English; spoken or cross-linguistic generalizability is unknown
• Collapsing across all control tweets in Study 1 may obscure context-specific variation in word length

Socratic Questions

• Does using longer words always signal greater sincerity, or can it backfire in some contexts?
• Could the perception of sincerity depend on the audience’s literacy or cultural background?
• How might dynamic iconicity apply in other emotional contexts, such as expressing gratitude or grief?
• Are people consciously aware of the effort implied in longer words, or is this an implicit judgment?
• How would the results differ if apologies were spoken rather than written?
• What alternative explanations might account for the use of longer words in apologies?
• Should institutions (e.g., corporations, governments) deliberately craft longer-worded apologies to seem more sincere, or is that manipulative?
• Could training in dynamic iconicity improve communication in therapy or conflict resolution?
• Would similar results appear in apologies written in different languages or cultural norms?
• How might this study inform AI models designed to generate emotionally intelligent responses?