Imagine your immune system is a sports team: Language expectancies in the use of physician analogies and jargon

Objectives: The study examined how physicians’ use of analogies, literal language, or medical jargon influences patient attitudes towards health recommendations and perceptions of physician trustworthiness by considering language's alignment or deviation from patient expectations and subsequent evaluations. Methods: A 3 (physician language: analogies, jargon, literal language) x 2 (health topic: coronary artery disease, influenza vaccine) experiment tested the role of communication unexpectedness and evaluations on patient attitudes and physician trustworthiness. Participants (N = 545) recruited online were instructed to imagine themselves as patients interacting with the physician in a randomly assigned video, in which the physician explained medical information and provided a health recommendation. Participants then reported their attitudes toward the recommended behavior and their perceptions of the physician's trustworthiness. Results: The physician's use of analogies or jargon was more unexpected than literal language. Jargon was evaluated more negatively, but analogies were evaluated similarly to literal language. Language type had significant indirect effects on attitudes and perception of physician through unexpectedness, moderated by patient evaluation of communication. When participants evaluated physicians’ communication positively, literal language led to the best outcomes, while jargon led to the worst outcomes through higher unexpectedness. When participants evaluated the style neutrally, jargon resulted in the best outcomes through higher unexpectedness, while literal language led to the worst outcomes. Conclusions: This study highlights the crucial and contingent role of patient expectations and evaluations in shaping the outcomes of physician language strategies. Our findings underscore the complexity of language choice, demonstrating that unexpected communication, even when evaluated positively, may reduce its intended persuasive effect. Practice implications: Healthcare professionals should assess patient preferences when making their language choice. Interventions that train physicians to recognize and respond to patient expectations should ensure more tailored and effective communication approaches, ultimately enhancing patient trust, comprehension, and adherence to medical recommendations.