Language is encoded with cultural information that shapes thought and behavior.

Cross-cultural experimental studies suggest that priming people with different pronouns can influence them.

Findings are not uniform and priming research is often critiqued.

Consciously shifting the language we use could influence us beyond short-lived experimental effects.

In Spike Lee’s documentary covering the famed Rumble in the Jungle, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Norman Mailer recalls one of the many memorable moments from the life of Muhammad Ali. Speaking to a group of students at Harvard, a spontaneous call from the crowd invites Ali to “give us a poem.” Mailer recalls that Ali pauses for a moment before pronouncing, “Me, we.” Mailer, the gifted wordsmith, fawns over Ali’s understated eloquence and suggests this is the shortest poem in the English language.

Ali was a dynamic figure: quintessentially American in his rags-to-riches, self-made success, yet global in stature and political dissent. This dynamism is embodied in his turn of phrase, which collapses the individualist approach into a collectivist one.

Collectivism and individualism are much discussed within the field. According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, languages encode distinct cultural cognitions that encourage speakers of the language to adopt specific cultural perspectives.

Intra- and Intercultural Differences

Across three experiments, Na and Choi (2009) showed that........

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