The Pollyanna Hypothesis in Business Writing: Initial Results,Suggestions for Research

Abstract

This paper looks at three hypotheses: that regardless of the financially good or bad years of a corporation, the communication in the annual let ters to the stockholders will be predominantly positive; that negative words are less frequent in a financially good year than a bad year; and that German readers also tend to accept the same preferred, positive words as Americans. All hypotheses were sustained after viewing 12 annual letters to stockholders in 1975 and 12 letters in 1977.

The Pollyanna Hypothesis provides a fertile area for further research: into business letters, business speeches, or other areas which fall into the genre of written or oral business communication.

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References

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Corporations used in the study were the following: Allied Chemical; Aluminum Company of America; American Can; American Telephone and Telegraph; DuPont; General Electric; Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing; Standard Oil of California; and Texaco.

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The authors express their appreciation to Craig Roush for assistance with the statistical data and Tom Cragg for computer assistance.