Linguistic Styles Pennebaker, James W; King, Laura A
Journal of personality and social psychology,
12/1999, Volume:
77, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Can language use reflect personality style? Studies examined the reliability, factor structure, and validity of written language using a word-based, computerized text analysis program. Daily diaries ...from 15 substance abuse inpatients, daily writing assignments from 35 students, and journal abstracts from 40 social psychologists demonstrated good internal consistency for over 36 language dimensions. Analyses of the best 15 language dimensions from essays by 838 students yielded 4 factors that replicated across written samples from another 381 students. Finally, linguistic profiles from writing samples were compared with Thematic Apperception Test coding, self-reports, and behavioral measures from 79 students and with self-reports of a 5-factor measure and health markers from more than 1,200 students. Despite modest effect sizes, the data suggest that linguistic style is an independent and meaningful way of exploring personality.
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CEKLJ, FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, PEFLJ, UPUK
Writing about emotional experiences is associated with a host of positive outcomes. This study extended the expressive-writing paradigm to the realm of romantic relationships to examine the social ...effects of writing. For 3 consecutive days, one person from each of 86 dating couples either wrote about his or her deepest thoughts and feelings about the relationship or wrote about his or her daily activities. In the days before and after writing, instant messages were collected from the couples. Participants who wrote about their relationship were significantly more likely to still be dating their romantic partners 3 months later. Linguistic analyses of the instant messages revealed that participants and their partners used significantly more positive and negative emotion words in the days following the expressive-writing manipulation if the participants had written about their relationship than if they had written about their daily activities. Increases in positive emotion words partially mediated the relation between expressive writing and relationship stability.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, FSPLJ, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
An introduction to a special issue on, "Boundary conditions of expressive writing," re-examines certain assumptions of expressive writing as well as the link between expressive writing & a more ...emotionally expressive cultural environment. Taken together, the recent studies included in this special issue explore three aspects of expressive writing: methodology, mediators/moderators, & new outcomes. Emphasis is placed on the ability of expressive writing to produce new ways of thinking about emotions, cognitive processing, & health. References. Adapted from the source document.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, FSPLJ, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Although the expressive writing paradigm has generally produced positive health outcomes, a recurring puzzle concerns how and why it works. No single theory or theoretical perspective has ...convincingly explained its effectiveness. This may be attributable to the fact that expressive writing affects people on multiple levels—cognitive, emotional, social, and biological—making a single explanatory theory unlikely. In addition to addressing theory‐relevant questions, researchers and therapists must now address when and with whom writing is most beneficial and, at the same time, evaluate if this (and other) intervention produces economically valuable outcomes.
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BFBNIB, CEKLJ, FFLJ, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, ODKLJ, OILJ, PEFLJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
How is the natural language of feedback affected when instructors are White and learners are minorities? The present research addressed this question using a website called Feedback Forward through ...which White undergraduates provided extensive open-ended responses on a poorly written essay supposedly drafted by either a Black or a White fellow student. Results revealed a dissociation between the substance and style of feedback to the Black writer. The Black writer received selectively more overt praise for his or her writing and writing skills, and more encouragement to pursue a writing-related career, replicating past studies of the positive bias. However, this positively biased feedback was conveyed in a selectively more "lenient" style, marked by a simpler and less analytic vocabulary, more personal pronouns, more positive emotion words, and syntax that more closely mimicked that of the poorly written essay. Discomfort supplying feedback moderated these effects. Increased discomfort was associated with more substantive criticism to the White writer, and with a more lenient style to the Black writer. In sum, minority learners may be receiving open-ended feedback that is a perplexing blend of explicit praise conveyed in an implicitly diminishing manner. Additional results showed that manipulated self-image concerns produced positively biased copyedits to the Black writer, replicating Harber, Stafford, and Kennedy (2010). Direct queries from the fictive writer-in the form of rating-based questions-also favored the Black writer, whose essay, ability, and prospects were rated higher than those of the White writer.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
This research showed a marked dissociation between the content of White instructors' feedback to Black learners and the style in which this feedback is conveyed. Instructors, especially if uncomfortable supplying feedback, gave Black learners selectively more overt praise for their talents and for their work. However, they expressed these more positive evaluations in less sophisticated and more accommodating language. This dissociation between what White instructors said to Black learners and how they said it suggests that Black learners receive mixed messages about their performances and abilities. Secondary findings reconfirm and extend past research on the positive feedback bias.
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This work explores the relationship between a person’s demographic/psychological traits (e.g., gender and personality) and self-identity images and captions. We use a dataset of images and captions ...provided by
N
≈ 1350 individuals, and we automatically extract features from both the images and captions. We identify several visual and textual properties that show reliable relationships with individual differences between participants. The automated techniques presented here allow us to draw interesting conclusions from our data that would be difficult to identify manually, and these techniques are extensible to other large datasets. Additionally, we consider the task of predicting gender and personality using both single modality features and multimodal features. We show that a multimodal predictive approach outperforms purely visual methods and purely textual methods. We believe that our work on the relationship between user characteristics and user data has relevance in online settings, where users upload billions of images each day.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Abstract
Background
Previous research has shown a link between low positive affect and mortality, but questions remain about how positive affect is related to mortality and how this differs by gender ...and age.
Purpose
To investigate the relationships between positive affect, negative affect, and mortality in a general population sample, and to examine whether these relationships were related to age, sex, or cause-specific mortality.
Methods
We used data from 5,554 Norwegian participants aged 47–49 and 71–74 years who completed the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and also provided data on demographics, health behaviors, and physical health as part of the Hordaland Health Study. The primary outcome was mortality after an average follow-up period of 16.5 years.
Results
Participants in the lowest positive affect tertile had a near twofold increased mortality risk, compared to those in the highest positive affect tertile. This association was driven primarily by the PANAS “active” item and persisted, even after controlling for activity-related confounds and other positive affect items. No significant associations were found between negative affect and mortality. The relationship between positive affect and mortality was not significantly attenuated by age or sex. Although low positive affect was associated with an increased risk of mortality, it was not related to a specific cause of death.
Conclusions
Low positive affect was significantly associated with mortality risk. The relationship was driven by the PANAS active item and not associated with cause-specific mortality. Findings suggest future research should examine the association between feeling inactive, sedentary behavior, and subsequent mortality.
This study found low positive affect was significantly associated with mortality risk in over 5,000 Norwegian participants followed up after 16 years
Objective
To understand what terms people seeking information about gout use most frequently in online searches and to explore the psychological and emotional tone of these searches.
Methods
A large ...de‐identified data set of search histories from major search engines was analyzed. Participants who searched for gout (n = 1,117), arthritis (arthritis search control group, age and sex‐matched, n = 2,036), and a random set of age and sex‐matched participants (general control group, n = 2,150) were included. Searches were analyzed using Meaning Extraction Helper and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count.
Results
The most frequent unique searches in the gout search group included gout‐related and food‐related terms. Those who searched for gout were most likely to search for words related to eating or avoidance. In contrast, those who searched for arthritis were more likely to search for disease‐ or health‐related words. Compared with the general control group, higher information seeking was observed for the gout and arthritis search groups. Compared with the general control group, both the gout and arthritis search groups searched for more food‐related words and fewer leisure and sex‐related words. The searches of both the gout and arthritis search groups were lower in positivity and higher in the frequency of sadness‐related words.
Conclusion
The perception of gout as a condition managed by dietary strategies aligns with online information seeking about the disease and its management. In contrast, people searching for information about arthritis focus more on medical strategies. Linguistic analyses reflect greater disability in social and leisure activities and lower positive emotion for those searching for gout or arthritis.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
The 2016 election provided more language and polling data than any previous election. In addition, the election spurred a new level of social media coverage. The current study analyzed the language ...of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton from the debates as well as the tweets of millions of people during the fall presidential campaign. In addition, aggregated polling data allowed for a comparison of daily election-relevant language from Twitter and fluctuations in voter preference. Overall, Trump’s debate language was low in analytic/formal thinking and high in negative emotional tone and authenticity. Clinton was high in analytic and positive emotions, low in authenticity. The analysis of almost 10 million tweets revealed that Trump-relevant tweets were generally more positive than Clinton-related tweets. Most important were lag analyses that predicted polling numbers a week later from tweets. In general, when Clinton-related tweets were more analytic, her subsequent poll numbers dropped. Similarly, positive emotion language in the Clinton-related tweets predicted lower poll numbers a week later. Conversely, Trump-related tweets that were high in positive emotion and in analytic thinking predicted higher subsequent polling. In other words, when Twitter language about the candidates was used in ways inconsistent with the candidates themselves, their poll numbers went up. We propose two possible explanations for these findings: the projection hypothesis, a desire to seek qualities the candidates are missing, and the participant hypothesis, a shift in who is participating in the Twitter conversation over the course of the campaigns.
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