I was talking to a friend this week about the current political goings on and he commented that you can easily spot a liberal or a conservative by the kind of language they use. His theory is that people who sprinkle their conversations with large helpings of “we”, “feelings”, “help”, “try”, and “care” are left leaning, while people who use “me”, “must”, “will”, and “win” lean in the other direction. Of course neither of us have any empirical evidence for this, however I thought it was an intriguing theory so I did some Goggling. It turns out that there has been quite a lot of work done on how politicians use language to frame and communicate their world views. According to George Lakoff, a Professor of Linguistics at UC Berkley, the liberal worldview is modeled on a nurturing parent family (remember Hillary’s book “It takes a Village?). It assumes that the world is basically good and can be made better. Nurturing involves empathy, and the responsibility to take care of oneself and others for whom we are responsible. On a larger scale, specific policies follow, such as governmental protection in form of a social safety net and government regulation, civil liberties and equal treatment (fairness and freedom), open government (from open communication), and the promotion of an economy that benefits all and functions to promote these values. According to Lakoff, the conservative worldview, on the other hand, is the strict father model. It assumes that the world is dangerous and difficult and that children are born bad and must be made good. The strict father is the moral authority who supports and defends the family, and teaches his kids right from wrong. In this wold view, the only way to do that is through fatherly discipline that by adulthood will become internal discipline. The good people are the disciplined people. Once grown, the self-reliant, disciplined children are on their own. Lakoff maintains that for the right wing, the good citizens are the disciplined ones – those who have already become wealthy or at least self-reliant – and those who are on the way. Social programs, meanwhile, “spoil” people by giving them things they haven’t earned and keeping them dependent. So it seems to me that there there is something to my friends theory! If Lakoff is right the words and phrases you use will probably be driven by your view of the world. So the “nurturing” left leaing politician may use an abundance of “we” and”care” while their right leaning colleagues will use “I or me” and “win”. As an organizational psychologist I wonder if this theory might play out in organizations ? Do managers see their roles as being a “nurturing parent” or a “disciplinarian father”? Douglas McGregor identified theses opposing tendencies in the 1960s in his Theory “X” and Theory “Y” model of motivation. In theory Theory “X” managers think people are basically lazy and need to be pushed (authoritarian father?) while in Theory “Y” managers think that people are basically motivated and all they need is encouragement (nurturing parent?). It would be interesting to study if these tendencies play out in the words that managers use and the organizational cultures they create. I could not find anything on this topic in my Googling, so I offer it as a suggestion for as a great graduate student project.