According to the psychology department at Yale University, some words in the English language are more powerful than others. Here are their top 10 most powerful:

10. New -- It's part of basic human makeup to seek novelty.

9. Save -- We all want to save something.

8. Safety -- This could refer to health or long-lasting quality.

7. Proven -- Helps remove fear from trying something new.

6. Love -- Continues to be an all-time favorite.

5. Discover -- Presents a sense of excitement and adventure.

4. Guarantee -- Provides a sense of safety at the time of purchase.

3. Health -- Especially powerful when it applies to a product.

2. Results -- Works in rationalizing a purchase.

1. You -- Listed as the #1 most powerful word in every study reviewed. Because of the personal nature of advertising copywriting, you should use “you” in your headline, opening line and as often as possible. In fact, many copywriters will throw out a headline if “you” is not in it.

I would say there is a group of people out there who love the word (LEARN).

learn how to ...

Interesting stuff, Mearner, thanks for posting. Would you happen to have a link for more information -- something on Yale's web site, perhaps?

The only clues I have to this research is that I know it comes from Yale University and that it was done some time before 2001. If you wanted to track down the exact research my best suggestion would be to contact the Social Psychology Department at Yale or perhaps you could track it down through the Society for Consumer Psychology at http://fisher.osu.edu/marketing/scp/

Thanks for the interesting post....:yippee:

Well this post happened awhile ago from its origin, but I would like to ad to Mearner's post and state that adding a simple word in front of these powerful words would be "how" or "how to".

This is something I have learned from some of my mentors in the past. People love hearing things like "save" "love" "guarantee". But by just adding to the beginning of these words "how to find love" or "how to save hundreds" etc., has more than doubled my sign up rates through some marketing campaigns.

People are very attracted to learning how to develope and learn how to learn to do these things.

Fred

I love the word "results". It means absolutely nothing without a qualifier, and yet it often produces, erm, results. ;)