Recent research unveils that, although people commonly narrate events in the past tense, conveying the information in the present tense enhances the speaker's or writer's certainty, thereby increasing persuasiveness.
A University of Toronto study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology asserts that any message specially the online reviews articulated in the present tense holds greater persuasive power compared to other forms.
According to a release, the researchers believe that the present tense can make messages more persuasive because it grounds them in the present moment and makes them feel more real and immediate.
"The more vivid something is, the more real and true it seems," says Sam Maglio, co-author of the study and professor of marketing and psychology at U of T Scarborough. "The past and the future aren't as vivid as the present. In the present tense, you as the reader take a journey with the speaker and you become immersed.
"We are experiencing it together."
Maglio, along with David Fang, a U of T alumnus, examined millions of Amazon reviews to determine the impact of verb tense on helpfulness ratings. They found that reviews written in the present tense received significantly more upvotes than those written in the past or future tense. This trend persisted even when considering other factors such as pictures, review length, and star ratings. Additionally, when hundreds of participants were asked to rate reviews, they consistently favored those written in the present tense.
"Reviews are maximally helpful when they are right here and they're right now because the closer the reader can come to seeing it, touching it, making it palpable, the more they believe it and the more they trust it," says Maglio, who is cross-appointed to the Rotman School of Management. "It's hard to be immersive and vivid and visceral from a world away."
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