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Dias Martins MDJ, Baumard N. Reproductive Strategies and Romantic Love in Early Modern Europe. ARCHIVES OF SEXUAL BEHAVIOR 2024; 53:901-915. [PMID: 38148451 PMCID: PMC10920442 DOI: 10.1007/s10508-023-02759-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/24/2023] [Revised: 11/22/2023] [Accepted: 11/22/2023] [Indexed: 12/28/2023]
Abstract
In Western Europe, the Early Modern Period is characterized by the rise of tenderness in romantic relationships and the emergence of companionate marriage. Despite a long research tradition, the origins of these social changes remain elusive. In this paper, we build on recent advances in behavioral sciences, showing that romantic emotional investment, which is more culturally variable than sexual attraction, enhances the cohesion of long-term relationships and increases investment in children. Importantly, this long-term strategy is considered especially advantageous when living standards are high. Here, we investigate the relationship between living standards, the emotional components of love expressed in fiction work, and behavioral outcomes related to pair bonding, such as nuptial and fertility rates. We developed natural language processing measures of "emotional investment" (tenderness) and "attraction" (passion) and computed romantic love in English plays (N = 847) as a ratio between the two. We found that living standards generally predicted and temporally preceded variations of romantic love in the Early Modern Period. Furthermore, romantic love preceded an increase in nuptial rates and a decrease in births per marriage. This suggests that increasing living standards in the Early Modern Period may have contributed to the emergence of modern romantic culture.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mauricio de Jesus Dias Martins
- Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Institut Jean Nicod, École Normale Supérieure, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris Sciences and Lettres Research University, 75005, Paris, France.
- Neurology Department, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, 04103, Leipzig, Germany.
- SCAN-Unit, Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, 1090, Vienna, Austria.
| | - Nicolas Baumard
- Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Institut Jean Nicod, École Normale Supérieure, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris Sciences and Lettres Research University, 75005, Paris, France
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Kaźmierczak I, Sarzyńska-Wawer J, Wawer A, Chądzyńska M. Describing a critical life event and its psychological consequences: The type of language used by patients suffering from depression and its relationship with personality development. CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s12144-020-00944-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
AbstractInformation on personality development (and its linguistic predictors) in the aftermath of a critical life event among depressive patients is relatively limited. The study’s aim was to verify two hypotheses: (1) Participants with depression will use concrete rather than abstract language to describe their most recent critical life event and its psychological consequences and (2) The more abstract the language used, the higher the level of personality development. 16 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy patients suffering from depression participated in the study (M = 34 years old; SD = 4.02). Their level of personality development was assessed qualitatively by two independent coders. The coding system was based on the Positive Disintegration Theory (Dąbrowski 1964). We used typology from the Linguistic Category Model (Semin and Fiedler 1991) to analyse the level of abstractness vs. concreteness. Depressed patients were classified as either abstract language speakers or concrete language speakers. There were equal numbers of both types of speakers. Moreover participants consistently used one type of language, regardless of whether they were describing the critical life event itself or its psychological consequences. As expected, using higher levels of language abstractness when speaking correlated with possessing higher levels of personality development. Our findings provide practitioners with useful knowledge on the benefits of using abstract language to improve supportive strategies when dealing with people in crisis and modify the psychotherapeutic protocols used to treat depression.
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Luoto S. Sexual Dimorphism in Language, and the Gender Shift Hypothesis of Homosexuality. Front Psychol 2021; 12:639887. [PMID: 34135808 PMCID: PMC8200855 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.639887] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/10/2020] [Accepted: 04/15/2021] [Indexed: 12/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Psychological sex differences have been studied scientifically for more than a century, yet linguists still debate about the existence, magnitude, and causes of such differences in language use. Advances in psychology and cognitive neuroscience have shown the importance of sex and sexual orientation for various psychobehavioural traits, but the extent to which such differences manifest in language use is largely unexplored. Using computerised text analysis (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count: LIWC 2015), this study found substantial psycholinguistic sexual dimorphism in a large corpus of English-language novels (n = 304) by heterosexual authors. The psycholinguistic sex differences largely aligned with known psychological sex differences, such as empathising–systemising, people–things orientation, and men’s more pronounced spatial cognitive styles and abilities. Furthermore, consistent with predictions from cognitive neuroscience, novels (n = 158) by lesbian authors showed minor signs of psycholinguistic masculinisation, while novels (n = 167) by homosexual men had a female-typical psycholinguistic pattern, supporting the gender shift hypothesis of homosexuality. The findings on this large corpus of 66.9 million words indicate how psychological group differences based on sex and sexual orientation manifest in language use in two centuries of literary art.
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Affiliation(s)
- Severi Luoto
- English, Drama and Writing Studies, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.,School of Psychology, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
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Singleton O, Newlon M, Fossas A, Sharma B, Cook-Greuter SR, Lazar SW. Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Correlate with Psychosocial Development in Contemplative Practitioners and Controls. Brain Sci 2021; 11:brainsci11060728. [PMID: 34070890 PMCID: PMC8228853 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci11060728] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2021] [Revised: 05/24/2021] [Accepted: 05/25/2021] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Jane Loevinger’s theory of adult development, termed ego development (1966) and more recently maturity development, provides a useful framework for understanding the development of the self throughout the lifespan. However, few studies have investigated its neural correlates. In the present study, we use structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate the neural correlates of maturity development in contemplative practitioners and controls. Since traits possessed by individuals with higher levels of maturity development are similar to those attributed to individuals at advanced stages of contemplative practice, we chose to investigate levels of maturity development in meditation practitioners as well as matched controls. We used the Maturity Assessment Profile (MAP) to measure maturity development in a mixed sample of participants composed of 14 long-term meditators, 16 long-term yoga practitioners, and 16 demographically matched controls. We investigated the relationship between contemplative practice and maturity development with behavioral, seed-based resting state functional connectivity, and cortical thickness analyses. The results of this study indicate that contemplative practitioners possess higher maturity development compared to a matched control group, and in addition, maturity development correlates with cortical thickness in the posterior cingulate. Furthermore, we identify a brain network implicated in theory of mind, narrative, and self-referential processing, comprising the posterior cingulate cortex, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, and inferior frontal cortex, as a primary neural correlate.
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Affiliation(s)
- Omar Singleton
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA 02114, USA; (O.S.); (M.N.); (A.F.)
| | - Max Newlon
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA 02114, USA; (O.S.); (M.N.); (A.F.)
| | - Andres Fossas
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA 02114, USA; (O.S.); (M.N.); (A.F.)
| | - Beena Sharma
- Vertical Development Academy, Woodside, CA 94062, USA;
| | - Susanne R. Cook-Greuter
- Vertical Development Academy, Woodside, CA 94062, USA;
- Cook-Greuter and Associates, Wayland, MA 01778, USA;
| | - Sara W. Lazar
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA 02114, USA; (O.S.); (M.N.); (A.F.)
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +1-617-724-7108; Fax: +1-617-643-7340
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Dramatic Increases in Telehealth-Related Tweets during the Early COVID-19 Pandemic: A Sentiment Analysis. Healthcare (Basel) 2021; 9:healthcare9060634. [PMID: 34071822 PMCID: PMC8230122 DOI: 10.3390/healthcare9060634] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/26/2021] [Revised: 05/24/2021] [Accepted: 05/25/2021] [Indexed: 01/16/2023] Open
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a large expansion of telehealth, but little is known about user sentiment. Tweets containing the terms “telehealth” and “telemedicine” were extracted (n = 192,430) from the official Twitter API between November 2019 and April 2020. A random subset of 2000 tweets was annotated by trained readers to classify tweets according to their content, including telehealth, sentiment, user type, and relation to COVID-19. A state-of-the-art NLP model (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers, BERT) was used to categorize the remaining tweets. Following a low and fairly stable level of activity, telehealth tweets rose dramatically beginning the first week of March 2020. The sentiment was overwhelmingly positive or neutral, with only a small percentage of negative tweets. Users included patients, clinicians, vendors (entities that promote the use of telehealth technology or services), and others, which represented the largest category. No significant differences were seen in sentiment across user groups. The COVID-19 pandemic produced a large increase in user tweets related to telehealth and COVID-19, and user sentiment suggests that most people feel positive or neutral about telehealth
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Boyd RL, Schwartz HA. Natural Language Analysis and the Psychology of Verbal Behavior: The Past, Present, and Future States of the Field. JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2021; 40:21-41. [PMID: 34413563 PMCID: PMC8373026 DOI: 10.1177/0261927x20967028] [Citation(s) in RCA: 56] [Impact Index Per Article: 18.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/28/2023]
Abstract
Throughout history, scholars and laypeople alike have believed that our words contain subtle clues about what we are like as people, psychologically speaking. However, the ways in which language has been used to infer psychological processes has seen dramatic shifts over time and, with modern computational technologies and digital data sources, we are on the verge of a massive revolution in language analysis research. In this article, we discuss the past and current states of research at the intersection of language analysis and psychology, summarizing the central successes and shortcomings of psychological text analysis to date. We additionally outline and discuss a critical need for language analysis practitioners in the social sciences to expand their view of verbal behavior. Lastly, we discuss the trajectory of interdisciplinary research on language and the challenges of integrating analysis methods across paradigms, recommending promising future directions for the field along the way.
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Dal Lin C, Brugnolo L, Marinova M, Plebani M, Iliceto S, Tona F, Vitiello G. Toward a Unified View of Cognitive and Biochemical Activity: Meditation and Linguistic Self-Reconstructing May Lead to Inflammation and Oxidative Stress Improvement. ENTROPY 2020; 22:e22080818. [PMID: 33286589 PMCID: PMC7517388 DOI: 10.3390/e22080818] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2020] [Revised: 07/23/2020] [Accepted: 07/25/2020] [Indexed: 12/12/2022]
Abstract
Stress appears to be the basis of many diseases, especially myocardial infarction. Events are not objectively “stressful” but what is central is how the individual structures the experience he is facing: the thoughts he produces about an event put him under stress. This cognitive process could be revealed by language (words and structure). We followed 90 patients with ischemic heart disease and 30 healthy volunteers, after having taught them the Relaxation Response (RR) as part of a 4-day Rational–Emotional–Education intervention. We analyzed with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software the words that the subjects used across the study following the progression of blood galectin-3 (inflammation marker) and malondialdehyde (oxidative stress marker). During the follow-up, we confirmed an acute and chronic decrease in the markers of inflammation and oxidative stress already highlighted in our previous studies together with a significant change in the use of language by the subjects of the RR groups. Our results and the precise design of our study would seem to suggest the existence of an intimate relationship and regulatory action by cognitive processes (recognizable by the type of language used) on some molecular processes in the human body.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carlo Dal Lin
- Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, Padua University Medical School, Via Giustiniani 2, 35100 Padua, Italy; (S.I.); (F.T.)
- Correspondence: (C.D.L.); (G.V.); Tel.: +39-049-8218642 (C.D.L.)
| | - Laura Brugnolo
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, Padua University Medical School, Via Giustiniani 2, 35100 Padua, Italy; (L.B.); (M.M.); (M.P.)
| | - Mariela Marinova
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, Padua University Medical School, Via Giustiniani 2, 35100 Padua, Italy; (L.B.); (M.M.); (M.P.)
| | - Mario Plebani
- Department of Laboratory Medicine, Padua University Medical School, Via Giustiniani 2, 35100 Padua, Italy; (L.B.); (M.M.); (M.P.)
| | - Sabino Iliceto
- Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, Padua University Medical School, Via Giustiniani 2, 35100 Padua, Italy; (S.I.); (F.T.)
| | - Francesco Tona
- Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, Padua University Medical School, Via Giustiniani 2, 35100 Padua, Italy; (S.I.); (F.T.)
| | - Giuseppe Vitiello
- Department of Physics “E.R. Caianiello”, Salerno University, Via Giovanni Paolo II, 132, 84084 Fisciano (Salerno), Italy
- Correspondence: (C.D.L.); (G.V.); Tel.: +39-049-8218642 (C.D.L.)
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Boyd RL, Pasca P, Conroy-Beam D. You’re Only Jung Once: Building Generalized Motivational Systems Theories Using Contemporary Research on Language. PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRY 2019. [DOI: 10.1080/1047840x.2019.1633122] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Ryan L. Boyd
- Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
| | - Paola Pasca
- Department of History, Society and Human Studies, University of Salento, Lecce, Italy
| | - Daniel Conroy-Beam
- Department of Psychology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California
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