Overview
Starting sentences with "I" is a common stylistic choice, but what does it signal to our readers? I don’t know about you, but I was taught that starting each sentence with “I” can make you seem too self-focused. However, as the landscape of digital communication evolves, a plethora of platforms have emerged with varied norms and etiquettes that sometimes defy conventional wisdom.
Frequently using "I" at the beginning of sentences could make you seem less personable or more self-focused. But in contexts like email, using "I" could be perceived as taking ownership and responsibility, or even just being clear and direct, which all might be interpreted as thoughtful or attentive rather than self-centered.
In this experiment, we investigated whether frequently using "I" at the beginning of sentences affects perceptions of self-centeredness, warmth, and competence across two different contexts: a Twitter post and an email between work colleagues. The outcomes surprised us, and they provide valuable insights for both social media users and professionals seeking to engage more effectively with their audiences.
The Experiment
1,200 people were recruited from Prolific, an online research platform, to take part in a study that entailed reading a series of short texts. For this experiment, participants were shown either an email or a twitter post (randomly assigned) in which every sentence was stylized to either start with “I” or not start with “I” (also randomly assigned).
The emails and twitter posts shown to participants are provided below. Each participant saw only one of these messages, with the starting instructions, “Imagine you receive the following email from a colleague at your company,” or “Imagine you’re scrolling Twitter (X) and see the following post from an acquaintance.”
From: Pat K.
Subject: Social Event
There's a social event after work today, right?
If any of you are planning to go, I might join. The last one was decent. In the meantime, I can wait in the conference room.
Subject: Social Event
There's a social event after work today, right?
If any of you are planning to go, I might join. The last one was decent. In the meantime, I can wait in the conference room.
From: Pat K.
Subject: Social Event
I think there's a social event after work today, right?
I might join if any of you are planning to go. I thought the last one was decent. I can wait in the conference room in the meantime.
Subject: Social Event
I think there's a social event after work today, right?
I might join if any of you are planning to go. I thought the last one was decent. I can wait in the conference room in the meantime.
"Can't believe it's already spring! This is the best time of year. This month, I'm going to do so many outdoor activities. Hopefully it doesn't rain though. If it does, I might go crazy."
"I can't believe it's already spring! I think this is the best time of year. I'm going to do so many outdoor activities this month. I hope it doesn't rain though. I might go crazy if it does."
To measure our outcomes of interest, namely perceptions of self-centeredness, warmth, and competence, participants were then asked “To what extent do you think the following words describe this person? (1 = Not at all, 7 = Very much),” with words including “Self-centered,” “Nice,” and “Smart.”
Analyses of the data were conducted using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis.
Analyses of the data were conducted using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis.
Results
Starting sentences with “I” may not carry the social penalty once assumed by conventional wisdom. Overall, our writer was perceived to be 9.8% less self-centered (avg = 3.44; p < 0.0001) and 6.7% warmer (avg. = 5.08; p < 0.0001) when each sentence began with “I,” relative to sentence structure that didn’t (avgs. = 3.82, 4.76; p’s < 0.0001). The effect on perceived competence was more muted and not statistically significant (diff. = 2.8%; p = 0.083).
Context matters though. In this case, the effects predominantly took place in the email condition. As shown in the interaction graph below, starting sentences with I reduced perceptions of the email senders’ self-centeredness by 18.8%; this reduction was only 1.7% in the Twitter condition (p = 0.001).
A similar interaction result was obtained for perceived warmth, with a 10.5% increase for “I” sentences in the email condition, but only a 2.7% increase in the Twitter condition (p = 0.014).
Conclusion
Contrary to conventional wisdom, starting sentences with “I” does not make you look self-centered—in fact, it does the opposite. However, context matters. It doesn’t seem to matter much for social media. But in email, using “I” seems to make you look less self-centered and nicer.
Perhaps leading with "I" in emails gives the impression that you’re taking ownership and responsibility of the subject matter in a clear and attentive way. While future research should investigate the mechanisms underlying this effect, it’s seems that starting sentences with “I” may not carry the social penalty we once thought.
Methods Note
To test for significant differences in likability between our experimental conditions, we used an independent samples t-test. For statistically significant results, the difference between the averages of the two groups would be large, and the corresponding “p-value” would be small (p < 0.05). This indicates that if we were to replicate the study with the same population, we would likely obtain a similar effect. Additionally, we utilized OLS regression analyses with interaction terms to explore potential significant interactions between the main results and participant demographics, such as age and gender.
Data and survey materials used for this experiment are available upon request.