Linguistic styles: language use as an individual difference

A Linguistic Investigation of Mediators Between Religious Commitment and Health Behaviors in Older Adolescents

Social scientists are beginning to take an interest in the role that religiosity plays in the development of health behaviors throughout adolescence. Although there is mounting evidence of a relationship between these constructs, how and why such relationships exist is not well understood. In this exploratory study of 28 racially diverse university students, we examined whether the relationship between religious commitment and health behaviors could be detected through written language. The results indicated that religious commitment and various indices of healthy lifestyle practices were strongly correlated, that healthy lifestyle practices were related to use of causal words (representing cognitive attempts at understanding causes and effects) and first person plural words (representing social connectedness). The results were consistent with a model in which participants' use of causal words partially or fully mediated the relations between religious commitment and healthy lifestyle practices. Implications of findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Narrating personality change

The present research investigated the longitudinal relations between personality traits and narratives. Specifically, the authors examined how individual differences in 170 college students' narratives of personality change (a) were predicted by personality traits at the beginning of college, (b) related to actual changes and perceived changes in personality traits during college, and (c) related to changes in emotional health during college. Individual differences in narratives of personality trait change told in the 4th year of college fell into 2 dimensions: affective processing, characterized by positive emotions, and exploratory processing, characterized by meaning making and causal processing. Conscientious, open, and extraverted freshmen told exploratory stories of change as seniors. Emotionally healthy freshmen told stories of change that were high in positive affect. Both positive affective and exploratory stories corresponded to change in emotional stability and conscientiousness during college above and beyond the effects of perceived changes in these traits. In addition, both positive affective and exploratory narratives corresponded to increases in emotional health during college independent of the effects of changes in personality traits. These findings improve our understanding of how individuals conceptualize their changing identity over time.

Suffering and Generativity: Repairing Threats to Self in Old Age

Suffering is a powerful experience that can be difficult to articulate. Suffering differs from pain alone and includes an individual's awareness of a threat to self through death, loss of identity, or uncertaintly of the meaningfulness of one's life. In response to this threat, generative acts, especially creative expressions imbued with the self, may act as a means to repair the self in crisis. The case of Mr. A., an 85-year old man in good health, illustrates how various artistic pieces he created - a wooden dog and several poems -- helps him to restore a "fading" self. For Mr. A, the idea of "fading away" or becoming weaker and less useful until eventually disappearing is a major source of personal suffering. Through his art, he creates unique, interactive and tangible entities that can outlive his physical body and help him reclaim or repair threats to selfhood.

Gender differences in speech temporal patterns detected using lagged co-occurrence text-analysis of personal narratives

This paper describes a novel methodology for the detection of speech patterns. Lagged co-occurrence analysis (LCA) utilizes the likelihood that a target word will be uttered in a certain position after a trigger word. Using this methodology, it is possible to uncover a statistically significant repetitive temporal patterns of word use, compared to a random choice of words. To demonstrate this new tool on autobiographical narratives, 200 subjects related each a 5-min story, and these stories were transcribed and subjected to LCA, using software written by the author. This study focuses on establishing the usefulness of LCA in psychological research by examining its associations with gender. The application of LCA to the corpus of personal narratives revealed significant differences in the temporal patterns of using the word "I" between male and female speakers. This finding is particularly demonstrative of the potential for studying speech temporal patterns using LCA, as men and women tend to utter the pronoun "I" in comparable frequencies. Specifically, LCA of the personal narratives showed that, on average, men tended to have shorter interval between their use of the pronoun, while women speak longer between two subsequent utterances of the pronoun. The results of this study are discussed in light of psycholinguistic factors governing male and female speech communities.

Expressing positive emotions within online support groups by women with breast cancer

Based upon Fredrickson's Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions, this study examined the role of expressing positive emotions in online support groups for women with breast cancer. Underserved women with breast cancer in rural Wisconsin and Detroit, Michigan were recruited from 2001 to 2003, and they were given access to online support groups. Both pretest and four-month posttest surveys were conducted with a sample of 231 women. Messages from 96 active participants were analyzed using a computerized text analysis program. Psychological benefits that occurred following the expression of positive emotions were greater among those who expressed more negative emotions.

Communicating about self and others within an online support group for women with breast cancer and subsequent outcomes

Research suggests communicating too much about one's self within an online support group may amplify breast cancer patients' focus on their own problems and exacerbate negative emotions while focusing on others may have the opposite effects. This study explored how pronoun usage within an online support group was associated with subsequent mental health outcomes. There were 286 patients recruited into the study who filled out the pre-test and 231 completed post-tests four months later with survey measures including breast cancer-related concerns and negative emotions. Messages were analyzed using a program counting first person and relational pronouns. A positive relationship was found between use of first person pronouns and negative emotions.

Computergestützte quantitative Textanalyse

Zusammenfassung. Im Beitrag wird die deutsche Adaptation des Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) vorgestellt. Das LIWC ist ein computergestütztes Textanalyseprogramm mit integriertem Wörterbuch, das von Pennebaker und Kollegen (2001) entwickelt wurde, um Essays aus Experimenten zum expressiven Schreiben zu untersuchen. Es werden zwei Studien zur Güte und Praktikabilität des deutschen LIWC berichtet: (1) An einer Stichprobe zweisprachig vorliegender Texte (N = 122) wird die Äquivalenz der deutschen Übersetzung mit dem Original überprüft. (2) An einer Stichprobe von N = 104 E-Mails wird die Robustheit des Verfahrens gegenüber Schreibfehlern untersucht. Für die meisten LIWC-Kategorien zeigt sich eine gute Äquivalenz. Des Weiteren erweist sich das LIWC als robust gegenüber Schreibfehlern. Diese Befunde sprechen für die Brauchbarkeit des LIWC für die Analyse deutscher Texte. Die beobachtete Robustheit ist von erheblicher praktischer Bedeutung für die Analyse natürlicher geschriebener Sprache aus der computervermittelten Kommunikation.

The relations between personality and language use

The authors of this study provided basic descriptive data on the correlation between personality tests and Korean language use. Native Korean-speaking students (N = 80) at Pusan National University completed 2 personality tests, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI; I. B. Myers, M. H. McCaulley, N. L. Quenk, & A. L. Hammer, 1998) and the 5-Factor Inventory (0. P. John, E. M. Donahue, & R. L. Kentle, 1991). They completed a stream-of-consciousness essay, which the authors analyzed using the Korean version of Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (KLIWC; C. H. Lee, J. Shim, & A. Yoon, 2005). Personality traits were significantly correlated with linguistic variables. Furthermore, the observed correlations between the two types of variables in Korean were consistent with the results of previous LIWC studies conducted in English. The authors discuss language use as a marker of personality.

Revealing Dimensions of Thinking in Open-Ended Self-Descriptions: An Automated Meaning Extraction Method for Natural Language

A new method for extracting common themes from written text is introduced and applied to 1,165 open-ended self-descriptive narratives. Drawing on a lexical approach to personality, the most commonly-used adjectives within narratives written by college students were identified using computerized text analytic tools. A factor analysis on the use of these adjectives in the self-descriptions produced a 7-factor solution consisting of psychologically meaningful dimensions. Some dimensions were unipolar (e.g., Negativity factor, wherein most loaded items were negatively valenced adjectives); others were dimensional in that semantically opposite words clustered together (e.g., Sociability factor, wherein terms such as shy, outgoing, reserved, and loud all loaded in the same direction). The factors exhibited modest reliability across different types of writ writing samples and were correlated with self-reports and behaviors consistent with the dimensions. Similar analyses with additional content words (adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and verbs) yielded additional psychological dimensions associated with physical appearance, school, relationships, etc. in which people contextualize their self-concepts. The results suggest that the meaning extraction method is a promising strategy that determines the dimensions along which people think about themselves.

Expressive writing in context: the effects of a confessional setting and delivery of instructions on participant experience and language in writing

OBJECTIVES

Manipulations of the setting and instructions were tested for effects on language use and reported health following expressive writing (EW).

METHODS

Participants (N=76) wrote in one of three conditions that differed by setting and the delivery of writing instructions.

RESULTS

The results showed that altering the context for EW influences participants' language use and their perceptions of the experience. There was no effect of conditions on self-reported health.

CONCLUSIONS

Future research should attend to the ways in which manipulations of EW context affect proposed mediators such as language, as well as outcomes of EW.

Language: A Toolbox for Sharing and Influencing Social Reality

The key role of language is often neglected in explicitly formulated theories of cognition, affect, and social behavior. Implicitly, though, the relationship between language and mind is at the heart of psychological science. Two major research programs—linguistic universals and linguistic relativity—originate in opposite philosophical positions, assuming either that language reflects the mind's ideas and free will or that language differences govern and restrict the mind. However, modern psychological research was able to begin illuminating the power and richness of linguistic influences only after the priority debate was given up and language and cognition were treated as integral parts of the same process. Beyond the confines of referential communication, conceived as cooperative transfer of symbols referring to common world knowledge, some of the most intriguing phenomena are detached from referential bonds, reflecting unintended, emergent, or even random outcomes of verbal interaction. Indeed, the effectiveness of verbal priming may be actually contingent on language users failure to understand the primes referential meanings and implications.

Linguistic analyses of natural written language: unobtrusive assessment of cognitive style in eating disorders

OBJECTIVE

Linguistic style analysis is introduced as a method of nonreactive measurement of cognitive style in individuals with eating disorders (ED).

METHOD

A journaling exercise was implemented on an ED inpatient unit. Thirty-four written essays collected from an unselected sample of 11 patients were analysed with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, with regard to predefined text categories. At each session, self-report of participant well-being and session impact were assessed.

RESULTS

Compared to essays from a student control group, and message-board entries of individuals who had recovered from an anorexia nervosa (AN), the inpatient journals displayed the highest rates of self-related words, negative emotion words, and the lowest rate of positive emotion words. Inpatients used more anxiety words and fewer words that refer to social processes and eating concerns than individuals who had recovered from an AN. Associations were found between linguistic categories, prewriting well-being, and postwriting evaluation.

CONCLUSION

Linguistic style analysis offers insights into cognitive styles, and provides a promising approach for their unobtrusive measurement in ED.

Effects of prayer and religious expression within computer support groups on women with breast cancer

Research indicates that two common ways breast cancer patients or women with breast cancer cope with their diagnosis and subsequent treatments are participating in computer support groups and turning to religion. This study is the first we are aware of to examine how prayer and religious expression within computer support groups can contribute to improved psychosocial outcomes for this population. Surveys were administered before group access and then 4 months later. Message transcripts were analyzed using a word counting program that noted the percentage of words related to religious expression. Finally, messages were qualitatively reviewed to better understand results generated from the word counting program. As hypothesized, writing a higher percentage of religion words was associated with lower levels of negative emotions and higher levels of health self-efficacy and functional well-being, after controlling for patients' levels of religious beliefs. Given the proposed mechanisms for how these benefits occurred and a review of the support group transcripts, it appeared that several different religious coping methods were used such as putting trust in God about the course of their illness, believing in an afterlife and therefore being less afraid of death, finding blessings in their lives and appraising their cancer experience in a more constructive religious light.

Preliminary analysis of language styles in a sample of schizophrenics

Language use of schizophrenics and normal people was compared by applying the language analysis program, Korean Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. Participants were asked to write a story about the most emotional experience of their lives on A4 size paper. 28 schizophrenics (M age: 26 yr.) and 32 normal people (M age: 23 yr.) participated. Analysis showed normal people used more words about jobs and achievements and fewer words about sex and food. The schizophrenics used fewer pronouns, personal pronouns, and adverbs than the normal group. Some aspects of clinical mechanism are manifest in language uses.

Channeling Identity: A Study of Storytelling in Conversations Between Introverted and Extraverted Friends

This narrative study examined the process of personal storytelling between college-age friends who were similarly introverted or extraverted. Participants were 19 introverted and 20 extraverted same-sex pairs (49 percent female) who had been friends for an average of 18 months. Stories emerged spontaneously during 10-minute catch-up conversations. Extraverted friends more often told stories that changed the topic, and more often co-constructed story plots. Introverted friends more often told stories that were embedded in a developing theme, and constructed story plots solo. With regard to content, extraverted friends told stories about romance more so than introverted friends, whose stories more often concerned family/hometown, and older events. The findings suggest that the traits of extraversion and introversion channel the identity-making process.

Telling and the remembered self: Linguistic differences in memories for previously disclosed and previously undisclosed events

Prior work suggests that disclosing experiences may provide people with more distance, more positive emotion, greater cognitive elaboration, and greater certainty regarding those experiences. Two studies (n=58 undergraduates and n=123 community-living adults) examined linguistic indicators of such differences between previously disclosed and previously undisclosed memories elicited on subsequent, solitary occasions using the LIWC text analysis program (Pennebaker & Francis, 1999). Disclosure was associated with differences in the linguistic features of subsequent memories. Potential mechanisms and implications of those differences are discussed.

The Content of Suicide Notes from Attempters and Completers

Abstract. A study of the content of suicide notes from attempted suicides and completed suicides was conducted using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) text analysis program. Notes from completed suicides had fewer metaphysical references, more future tense verbs, more social references (to others) and more positive emotions than did the notes from attempted suicides. The implications of these results were discussed.

Sexual desire and linguistic analysis: a comparison of sexually-abused and non-abused women

Although studies have identified a relationship between a history of child sexual abuse (CSA) and problems with hypoactive sexual desire, little is known about the potential cognitive and affective mechanisms involved in the sexual desire of women with a history of CSA. In this study, 27 women with a history of CSA and 22 women with no history of abuse were asked to write about sexual and non sexual topics. The Linguistic Inquiry Word Count software program was used to compute the percentage of words that fell into positive emotions, negative emotions, body, and sex categories. As expected, women with a history of CSA used more negative emotions words when writing about sexual topics, but not non-sexual topics, compared to non-abused women. Women with a history of CSA also used more sex words when writing about the non-sexual topics compared to non-abused women. Frequencies of body and sex words used in the sexual texts were positively linked to levels of sexual desire function. This association was not different between women with and without a history of CSA. A history of CSA remained an independent predictor of levels of sexual desire dysfunction even when taking into consideration the language used in the sexual texts, indicating that there may be aspects of the sexual desire experienced by women with a history of CSA that differ from non-abused women that remain unexplored.

An analysis of linguistic styles by inferred age in tv dramas

A language analysis program, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), was successful in identifying various psychological variables. This study investigated the relationship between spoken language and age inferred from drama scripts of 162 characters, analyzed by the Korean-LIWC across 4 age categories (10-19, 20-39, 40-59, and 60-79 years). Analysis indicated that younger characters use fewer phrases, morphemes, nouns, auxiliary words, and adverbs than older characters, suggesting less cognitive development of younger characters. In addition, younger characters used less positive words for emotion and achievement than older characters. These data appear contrary to the negative stereotypes of aging people.

Expressive writing for high-risk drug dependent patients in a primary care clinic: a pilot study

BACKGROUND

Previous research has shown that expressive writing is beneficial in terms of both physical and emotional health outcomes. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness and acceptability of a brief expressive writing intervention for high-risk drug dependent patients in a primary care clinic, and to determine the relationship between linguistic features of writing and health outcomes.

METHODS

Participants completed four 15-minute expressive writing tasks over a week, in which they described their thoughts and feelings about a recent stressful event. Self-report measures of physical (SF-12) and psychological health (DASS-21) were administered at baseline and at a two-week follow-up. Fifty-three participants were recruited and 14 (26%) completed all measures.

RESULTS

No statistically significant benefits in physical or psychological health were found, although all outcomes changed in the direction of improvement. The intervention was well-received and was rated as beneficial by participants. The use of more positive emotion words in writing was associated with improvements in depression and stress, and flexibility in first person pronoun use was associated with improvements in anxiety. Increasing use of cognitive process words was associated with worsening depressive mood.

CONCLUSION

Although no significant benefits in physical and psychological health were found, improvements in psychological wellbeing were associated with certain writing styles and expressive writing was deemed acceptable by high-risk drug dependent patients. Given the difficulties in implementing psychosocial interventions in this population, further research using a larger sample is warranted.

Self-report and linguistic indicators of emotional expression in narratives as predictors of adjustment to cancer

Emotional expression and cognitive efforts to adapt to cancer have been linked to better psychological adjustment. However, little is known about the relationship between linguistic indicators of emotional and cognitive coping efforts and corresponding self-report measures of related constructs. In this study, we sought to evaluate the interrelationships between self-reports of emotional suppression and linguistic indicators of emotional and cognitive coping efforts in those living with cancer. Seventy-one individuals attending a community cancer support group completed measures of emotional suppression and mood disturbance and provided a written narrative describing their cancer experience. Self-reports of emotional suppression were associated with more rather than less distress. Although linguistic indicators of both emotional expression and cognitive processing were generally uncorrelated with self-report measures of emotional suppression and mood disturbance, a significant interaction was observed between emotional suppression and use of cognitive words on mood disturbance. Among those using higher levels of emotional suppression, increasing use of cognitive words was associated with greater levels of mood disturbance. These findings have implications for a) the therapeutic use of emotion in psychosocial interventions and b) the use of computer-assisted technologies to conduct content analysis.

Language use in imagined dialogue and narrative disclosures of trauma

Support exists in many populations for the use of written disclosure to express thoughts and emotions about a traumatic experience. The present study examined language use in a variation of the writing task modified to include an imagined dialogue with another person. We hypothesized that this method would increase cognitive, affective, and present-tense word use, all of which are linked with beneficial outcomes from writing. We randomly assigned 169 college students to write in one of three conditions: trauma narrative, trauma dialogue, or control writing. Results suggested that writing about traumatic experiences in the form of a dialogue promotes greater present-oriented, affective experiencing and cognitive processing than does writing in the form of a narrative.

Effects of insightful disclosure within computer mediated support groups on women with breast cancer

Written expression about emotionally traumatic events is associated with physical and mental health benefits, and this study examines how insightful disclosure within a computer-mediated support group for women with breast cancer affects breast cancer-related concerns, emotional well-being, and self-reported physical well-being. Using a word counting program that notes the percentage of words related to various linguistic dimensions, this research specifically examined the effects of insightful disclosure written within these groups. Surveys were administered just before group access and then 2 months and 5 months later. Insightful disclosure improved emotional well-being and reduced negative mood but did not influence breast cancer-related concerns or self-reported physical well-being. Despite the common and frequent use of computer-mediated social support (CMSS) groups for people coping with health concerns, very little research to date has quantitatively tested the effects of participating in CMSS groups, and this is among the first published studies to quantitatively link any specific activity within a CMSS group to any specific outcomes. Implications for improving psychosocial interventions for people with health concerns are discussed, and future research objectives are suggested.

Personality and the Prediction of Consequential Outcomes

Personality has consequences. Measures of personality have contemporaneous and predictive relations to a variety of important outcomes. Using the Big Five factors as heuristics for organizing the research literature, numerous consequential relations are identified. Personality dispositions are associated with happiness, physical and psychological health, spirituality, and identity at an individual level; associated with the quality of relationships with peers, family, and romantic others at an interpersonal level; and associated with occupational choice, satisfaction, and performance, as well as community involvement, criminal activity, and political ideology at a social institutional level.