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Julie Sedivy Ph.D.

About

Julie Sedivy earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Rochester. She has spent twelve years on the faculty at Brown University's Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, and is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Calgary, where she teaches the language and psychology of persuasion. She is the lead author of the new book Sold on Language: How Advertisers Talk to You and What This Says About You. She is now working on a textbook, The Psychology of Language, and is a regular contributor to the linguistics blog Language Log.

Books by Julie Sedivy Ph.D.
Recent Posts
Is Your Language Making You Broke and Fat?
Keith Chen, an economist from Yale, makes a startling claim: people's fiscal responsibility and healthy lifestyle choices depend in part on how the grammar of their language encodes the concept of future time.
The Decisions of the Powerful: When Confidence Leads to Sloppy Thinking
Corner offices. Tall and plush leather chairs. The swaggering gait and confident postures. Walk into an office environment, and it's usually not hard to guess which people hold the positions of power. But do all these trimmings and reminders of the power hierarchy really make for the best decision-making among those who are in charge?
Get People to Start Agreeing with You
In the art of persuasion, timing, as they say, is everything. For example, if you decide to ask your boss for a salary raise, you might try to gauge just the right moment to make your request. Here's a hint: Make your pitch just after she's heard a presentation by her favorite employee.
Nod Your Head if You Agree with Yourself: How Your Own Body Language Can Persuade You

I don’t see the body language gurus dispensing advice about how to interpret your own body language. What if we use our own body language as clues to what we are thinking? And what if these clues can shape our attitudes?

I don’t see the body language gurus dispensing advice about how to interpret your own body language. What if we use our own body language as clues to what we are thinking? And what if these clues can shape our attitudes?

Are You a Mac or a Mac User? How the Language of Identity Persuades

Do you think of yourself as a beer-drinker, or do you merely drink beer? Are you a Democrat, or do you just vote for Democratic candidates? Wielding the right language to tap into people's sense of identity can make for potent persuasion.

Do you think of yourself as a beer-drinker, or do you merely drink beer? Are you a Democrat, or do you just vote for Democratic candidates? Wielding the right language to tap into people's sense of identity can make for potent persuasion.

Think you can't be persuaded by ads you ignore? Think again

It’s no surprise to advertisers that people rarely devote their full brainpower to the ads that are lobbed at them. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that the ads have no impact on consumers. Sometimes, it can mean the opposite.

It’s no surprise to advertisers that people rarely devote their full brainpower to the ads that are lobbed at them. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that the ads have no impact on consumers. Sometimes, it can mean the opposite.

Mac vs. PC
Fiction as stealth persuasion

The fictional words and actions of entirely made-up characters who have never drawn a breath in the real world can impact our attitudes and behavior more powerfully than the pleas or arguments of real flesh-and-blood people talking to us about real things in the actual world. Why should this be?

The fictional words and actions of entirely made-up characters who have never drawn a breath in the real world can impact our attitudes and behavior more powerfully than the pleas or arguments of real flesh-and-blood people talking to us about real things in the actual world. Why should this be?

Your best defense against advertising may be your unconscious mind

Evidence is piling up that commercial messages may affect us in many ways that we're not aware of. But it seems we have a defensive system—one that can be turned on by our unconscious mind.

Evidence is piling up that commercial messages may affect us in many ways that we're not aware of. But it seems we have a defensive system—one that can be turned on by our unconscious mind.