As Donald Trump has shown, words matter in how voters make political decisions.

With his frequent characterizations of his opponents as “lyin” or “crooked”, Donald Trump’s use of language during his 2016 presidential election campaign was a departure from previous contests. In new research, Stephen M. Utych examines the effects of this sort of emotional, negative language on political decision-making. Through experimental studies, he finds that when such language is used in discussing a topic people rate that topic more negatively. He writes that this negativity can also often spill over to those who are using the negative language.