The Psychology of Everyday Words
Discover how the words you hear, read, and say to yourself invisibly guide what you notice, remember, and feel. Learn the psychological mechanisms behind verbal framing and use language deliberately to sharpen your own thinking.
Like Duolingo, but for The Psychology of Everyday Words. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 12 levels across 2 sections, about 24 minutes end to end, roughly 5 days at five minutes a day. It moves through How Phrasing Steers What You Perceive and How Words Direct Action and Emotion. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in The Psychology of Everyday Words
- A stronger descriptive verb like 'smashed' suggests higher violent impact than a neutral verb like 'hit'
- People integrate the vivid imagery suggested by the verb into their original memory of the event
- Over time, people cannot distinguish between what they actually saw and what the phrasing implied
- Passive grammar removes or minimizes the person performing the action from the core of the sentence
- When an actor isn't directly attached to an action in language, listeners assign less moral responsibility and blame to them
- Active phrasing directly links the agent to the consequence, making responsibility prominent in thought
- Asking 'did you see X?' allows the listener to evaluate whether X existed
- Presupposing an object's existence (e.g., 'how fast was the dog...') sneaks the item in as established background fact
- The listener adopts the presupposition to answer the question, permanently embedding the fabricated detail into their memory
- Words that highlight potential gain prime optimistic, approach-oriented mindsets
- Words that highlight loss or danger immediately trigger threat-avoidance reactions
- Even when two descriptions describe the exact same mathematical reality, the initial emotional label anchors judgment before logical reasoning kicks in
- The brain mistakes ease of mental processing (cognitive fluency) for truth
- Rhyme, clear typography, and familiar, easy-to-pronounce vocabulary require less mental effort to process
- Presupposing an object's existence sneaks the item in as established background fact, permanently embedding it into memory
- Dense jargon and complex syntax feel laborious to process, which naturally triggers skepticism and doubt
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives The Psychology of Everyday Words the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
If someone describes a car crash using the word 'smashed' instead of 'hit', what impression does that give?
Get it right to open this lesson and 11 more in the app.
Where The Psychology of Everyday Words takes you
- 1
How Phrasing Steers What You Perceive
- Noticing How Phrasing Rewrites Memory
- How Vocabulary Filters Your Senses
- 2
How Words Direct Action and Emotion
- Spotting the Metaphors Running Your Decisions
- Directing Your Mind Through Inner Speech
2 sections · 4 units · 12 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
The Psychology of Everyday Words is taught in the Bestie style: your friend who just gets it. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start The Psychology of Everyday Words today.
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