How do COVID-19 experts psychologically manage the pandemic and its effects? Using a full year of press briefings (January 2020–January 2021) from the World Health Organization (N = 126), this paper ...evaluated the relationship between communication patterns and COVID-19 cases and deaths. The data suggest as COVID-19 cases and deaths increased, health experts tended to think about the virus in a more formal and analytic manner. Experts also communicated with fewer cognitive processing terms, which typically indicate people “working through” a crisis. This report offers a lens into the internal states of COVID-19 experts and their organization as they gradually learned about the virus and its daily impact.
Can word patterns from grant abstracts predict National Science Foundation (NSF) funding? In an analysis of over 7.4 million words covering 19,569 proposals, this article presents evidence that the ...writing style of NSF grant abstracts corresponds to the amount of money received for the award. The data describe a clear relationship between word patterns and funding magnitude: Grant abstracts that are longer than the average abstract, contain fewer common words, and are written with more verbal certainty receive more money from the NSF (approximately $372 per one-word increase). While such language patterns correspond to award amount, they largely contradict the NSF’s call to communicate science in a plain manner, suggesting an inconsistency between the injunctive norms of the NSF and the descriptive norms of science writing. Broadly, the results support a tradition of research that uses big text data to evaluate social and psychological dynamics.
This paper introduces the concept of deceptive (de)humanization, the internal belief that an outgroup is less-than-human while dishonestly acknowledging aspects of their humanity for impression ...management purposes. In a large online experiment (N = 1,169), participants wrote about their false or truthful opinions on an outgroup they perceived as more evolved or less evolved. Following several automated text analyses, the data indicated psychological differences in attention through word patterns. Consistent with prior work, deceptive texts contained fewer self-references and more negative emotion terms than truthful texts, and dehumanizers used more negative emotions than humanizers. New evidence suggests those who wrote deceptively about evolved groups focused the most on negative emotions compared to other participants. This work extends deception and dehumanization theory by investigating how such psychological constructs interact, and how they are reflected linguistically as communicators attempt to manage impressions and maintain a positive self-image.
Qualitative content analyses often rely on a top-down approach to understand themes in a collection of texts. A codebook prescribes how humans should judge if a text fits a theme based on rules and ...judgment criteria. Qualitative approaches are challenging because they require many resources (e.g., coders, training, rounds of coding), can be affected by researcher or coder bias, may miss meaningful patterns that deviate from the codebook, and often use a subsample of the data. A complementary, bottom-up approach—the Meaning Extraction Method—has been popular in social psychology but rarely applied to communication research. This paper outlines the value of the Meaning Extraction Method, concluding with a guide to conduct analyses of content and themes from massive and complete datasets, quantitatively. The Meaning Extraction Method is performed on a public and published archive of pet adoption profiles to demonstrate the approach. Considerations for communication research are offered.
Professional fact-checkers and fact-checking organizations provide a critical public service. Skeptics of modern media, however, often question the accuracy and objectivity of fact-checkers. The ...current study assessed agreement among two independent fact-checkers, The Washington Post and PolitiFact, regarding the false and misleading statements of then President Donald J. Trump. Differences in statement selection and deceptiveness scaling were investigated. The Washington Post checked PolitiFact fact-checks 77.4% of the time (22.6% selection disagreement). Moderate agreement was observed for deceptiveness scaling. Nearly complete agreement was observed for bottom-line attributed veracity. Additional cross-checking with other sources (Snopes, FactCheck.org), original sources, and with fact-checking for the first 100 days of President Joe Biden's administration were inconsistent with potential ideology effects. Our evidence suggests fact-checking is a difficult enterprise, there is considerable variability between fact-checkers in the raw number of statements that are checked, and finally, selection and scaling account for apparent discrepancies among fact-checkers.
Natural language processing (NLP)-previously the domain of a select few language and computer scientists-is undergoing an unprecedented surge in popularity across disciplines. The ubiquity of ...language data, alongside extremely rapid methodological innovations, has magnetized the field, attracting researchers with the promise of measuring, forecasting, and understanding the most central questions in business, psychology, biology, sociology, the humanities, and beyond. The power of language analysis to reveal insights into human thought, feeling, and behavior has become a core interest emerging from recent technological advances, which are being probed to unearth deeply embedded truths about the human condition. However, NLP research has reached a critical juncture, sitting at the cusp of societal transformation in many aspects of daily life. The details of how NLP research develops over the next 3-5 years will define this transformation. In this emerging, near-infinite space of NLP-driven research, we provide a critical frame of reference for how, when, and why these technologies should evolve in a particularly transdisciplinary manner. Specifically, we discuss (a) the urgency of pairing existing and emerging NLP research with existing scientific knowledge, theory, and principles from the behavioral sciences; (b) the coevolution of NLP technologies; and (c) the practical implications and ethical consequences of expanding language analysis using broader psychosocial theories of the human condition. While our discussion focuses principally on using language as a window in the
this topic holds substantial implications for other disciplines and lines of inquiry, including the dynamics of social interaction and beyond. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
Language patterns of complexity and confidence often indicate positive persuasion outcomes across settings. For example, such word types correlate with funding support from grant agencies and online ...crowds. This paper tested the preregistered hypothesis that language patterns of complexity and confidence also relate to a conference submission’s acceptance. Replicating and extending prior work, submissions from the International Communication Association (N = 9,559) with more complex content and more causality tend to be accepted. Implications of these data are discussed.
This preregistered study examined the psychological and physiological consequences of exercising self-control with the mobile phone. A total of 125 participants were randomly assigned to sit in an ...unadorned room for six minutes and either (a) use their mobile phone, (b) sit alone with no phone, or (c) sit with their device but resist using it. Consistent with prior work, participants self-reported more concentration difficulty and more mind wandering with no device present compared to using the phone. Resisting the phone led to greater perceived concentration abilities than sitting without the device (not having external stimulation). Failing to replicate prior work, however, participants without external stimulation did not rate the experience as less enjoyable or more boring than having something to do. We also observed that skin conductance data were consistent across conditions for the first three-minutes of the experiment, after which participants who resisted the phone were less aroused than those who were without the phone. We discuss how the findings contribute to our understanding of exercising self-control with mobile media and how psychological consequences, such as increased mind wandering and focusing challenges, relate to periods of idleness or free thinking.
Metacognitive frameworks such as processing fluency often suggest people respond more favorably to simple and common language versus complex and technical language. It is easier for people to process ...information that is simple and nontechnical compared to complex information, therefore leading to more engagement with targets. In two studies covering 12 field samples (total
= 1,064,533), we establish and replicate this simpler-is-better phenomenon by demonstrating people engage more with nontechnical language when giving their time and attention (e.g., simple online language tends to receive more social engagements). However, people respond to complex language when giving their money (e.g., complex language within charitable giving campaigns and grant abstracts tend to receive more money). This evidence suggests people engage with the heuristic of complex language differently depending on a time or money target. These results underscore language as a lens into social and psychological processes and computational methods to measure text patterns at scale.
Gender and ethnicity biases are pervasive across many societal domains including politics, employment, and medicine. Such biases will facilitate inequalities until they are revealed and mitigated at ...scale. To this end, over 1.8 million caregiver notes (502 million words) from a large US hospital were evaluated with natural language processing techniques in search of gender and ethnicity bias indicators. Consistent with nonlinguistic evidence of bias in medicine, physicians focused more on the emotions of women compared to men and focused more on the scientific and bodily diagnoses of men compared to women. Content patterns were relatively consistent across genders. Physicians also attended to fewer emotions for Black/African and Asian patients compared to White patients, and physicians demonstrated the greatest need to work through diagnoses for Black/African women compared to other patients. Content disparities were clearer across ethnicities, as physicians focused less on the
of Black/African and Asian patients compared to White patients in their critical care notes. This research provides evidence of gender and ethnicity biases in medicine as communicated by physicians in the field and requires the critical examination of institutions that perpetuate bias in social systems.
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