Why do some professionals use so much jargon? Jargon is a status signal associated with professional expertise and status. Thus, experts should always use more jargon, right?

Wrong.

Our research shows that lower status professionals routinely use jargon to show off or compensate for lower status. They are using excessive jargon not to be understood but rather to be respected.

Across 9 studies, we show that lower status professionals use more jargon in visible situations to compensate for low status. Seven experimental studies use MBAs in pitch competitions, academics giving research talks, lawyers discussing their work, and undergrads making professional bios. These studies all show that lower status professionals use more jargon in an attempt to be respected (and not understood!). We further show this effect in the real world. We analyse over 60,000 US PhD dissertations and find that academics from lower status schools compensate by including more academic jargon in their dissertation titles.

A main takeaway is that status and insecurity drive high jargon use. Emphasizing the importance of being understood reduces excessive jargon. Finally, lower status professionals are unconsciously at risk of using too much jargon because of their status concerns.