Other studies have shown that words that are used to express balance or nuance (“except,” “but,” and so on) are associated with higher cognitive complexity, better grades and even the truthfulness with which facts are reported. For bin Laden, analysis showed that the thought processes in his texts had reached a higher level over the years, whereas those of his lieutenant had stagnated.
Healing Words
This power of statistical analysis to quantify a person’s changing language use over time is a key advantage to programs such as LIWC. In 2003 Pennebaker and statistician R. Sherlock Campbell, now at Yale University, used a statistical tool called latent semantic analysis (LSA) to study the diary entries of trauma patients from three earlier studies, looking for text characteristics that had changed in patients who were convalescing and met rarely with their physician. Again, the researchers showed that content was unimportant. The factor that was most clearly associated with recovery was the use of pronouns. Patients whose writings changed perspective from day to day were less likely to seek medical treatment during the follow-up period.
It may be that patients who describe their situation both from their own viewpoint and from the perspective of others recover more quickly from traumatic experiences—a variation on the already well-established idea that writing about negative experiences is therapeutic. Or perhaps the LSA simply detected the patients’ recovery as reflected by their writing but not brought about by it—in that case, programs such as LIWC could aid doctors in diagnosing illness and gauging treatment progression. Researchers are currently investigating many other patient groups, including those with cancer, mental illness and suicidal tendencies, using LIWC to uncover clues about their emotional well-being and their mental state.
Although the statistical study of language is relatively young, it is clear that analyzing patterns of word use and writing style can lead to insights that would otherwise remain hidden. Because these tools offer predictions based on probability, however, such insights will never be definitive. “In the final analysis, our situation is much like that of economists,” Pennebaker says. “It’s too early to come up with a standardized analysis. But at the end of the day, we all are making educated guesses, the same way economists can understand, explain and predict economic ups and downs.”
He Said, She Said
The way we write and speak can reveal volumes about our identity and character. Here is a sampling of the many variables that can be detected in our use of style-related words such as pronouns and articles:
- Gender: In general, women tend to use more pronouns and references to other people. Men are more likely to use articles, prepositions and big words.
- Age: As people get older, they typically refer to themselves less, use more positive-emotion words and fewer negative-emotion words, and use more future-tense verbs and fewer past-tense verbs.
- Honesty: When telling the truth, people are more likely to use first-person singular pronouns such as “I.” They also use exclusive words such as “except” and “but.” These words may indicate that a person is making a distinction between what they did do and what they did not do—liars often do not deal well with such complex constructions.
- Depression and suicide risk: Public figures and published poets use more first-person singular pronouns when they are depressed or suicidal, possibly indicating excessive self-absorption and social isolation.
- Reaction to trauma: In the days and weeks after a cultural upheaval, people use “I” less and “we” more, suggesting a social bonding effect.
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27 Comments
Add CommentThe use of "I" might also suggest that the writer is taking responsibility for his/her thoughts and actions. If so, the insecurity rap would be misplaced.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis idea is very similar to a paper published fairly recently using language to study the cognition and emotion of political leaders and newscasters during major tourist attacks (Jhangiani, R., & Suedfeld, P., 2005). It was noted that as a nation became more and more likely to engage in war, linguistic complexity - which reflected the ability to see alternative points of view - would decrease. Fairly interesting article!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only finding that flies in the face of common sense is that, as people age, they use the future tense more than the past.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hate tourist attacks!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI sincerely hope some day political leaders and newscasters will live in a world free from tourist attacks. lol
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The only finding that flies in the face of common sense is that, as people age, they use the future tense more than the past. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell... the clock IS ticking after all.
Actions speak louder than words.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople say all kinds of dumb stuff.
This is one of the ideas that falls into the problem.
Why smart people believe weird things.
They just don't really think ....is it true or not.
Another one, I like. Talk is cheap. Think smart...think ahead.
Some enterprising coder should apply this as a plug-in for email programs, and thus present a icon as to the writers state of being. It might assist with communication, in that if one knows someone is under distress, they are going to respond differently than if not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't mind tourist attacks. We get way to many tourists in Southern Arizona in the wintertime. At this date, the only effective tourist attack is the vicious summertime heat!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI, on the other hand, enjoy tourist attacks. We have way too many tourists here in Southern Arizona. The only effective attack we've been able to muster is using the vicious summertime heat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhenever something touches politics, we find the unjustified extrapolations. For example, “McCain tended to speak directly and personally to his constituency, using a vocabulary that was both emotionally loaded and impulsive. Barack Obama, in contrast, made frequent use of causal relationships, which indicated more complex thought processes."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne of the biggest failings people suffer from is imputing causal relationships in places where they are not appropriate. The fiction is almost always more fun and full of more meaningful causality than the real world, where stuff just happens. Maybe the complex (and honest) thinker is the one who understands simplicity.
John, you may be a lawyer for knowing that causation and correlation are two separate concepts. I used then to fool juries very successfully.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnscientific Mike...You Zonies invade socal worse than killer bees. Glad I left mexifornia and moved to America. Tourists go home...leave your daughters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJohn...Occam's razor rules. You are correct that simplicity is usually correct. I'm sorry that as the evening wears on, and the level in the whicky bottle drops, I sometimes get too sarcastic. Respect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Virtually no one in psychology has realized that low-level words can give clues to large-scale behaviors"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is not only for words look at other behavior patterns: playing, taking care of your dolls later your children.relationship with the very first group in life and your later relationships the list is endless.
and finally we have a software to analysethat - LIWK.
I like...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave you ever stopped to think and then forgotten to start?
Any action which requires a choice eventually, when played in the public for approval, will require that it be simplified into easily understood categories. To state that using more ambiguous statements and 'but' and 'except' implies lower level reasoning may be completely incorrect: it may imply that, though the topic is complex, the speaker has synthesized it, and is presenting it in its essence. When writing a persuasive essay, I have observed that my initial drafts are overly long, wordy, and contain many 'exception' phrases. Then, for simplicity's sake, and to be concise, I edit it and hope its not too simple, and that the reader, who is usually quite intelligent, understands some of the implicit arguments, and the arguments that underlie some of the main points, since there exist beneath the surface many, many sub-arguments and views which must be shared.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe value of Scientific American is always expanded when research on matters that affect the general public is presented as clearly as this good work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you for all you do and keep it up!
Readers of this article should also keep in mind that the use of words is clearly situational and not some cosmic absolute. This article makes statements that would be contradictory if the reader is unaware of this consideration. As was pointed out several times in the article, the software counts words. It requires an experienced analyst to interpret the meaning of the numbers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's logical that a person's diction, style, grammar correlates strongly with experience, intelligence, and character. Unfortunately, not much of that was revealed in this article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's apparent that qualities like color, concision, directness (use of active verbs) and artful, educated sentence and paragraph construction reveal postive qualities.
More research on this subject could have beneficial effects in many social disciplines.
Those damn tourista are always attacking some place. Can't someone do something about them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI congratulate these researchers for their hard work. They might be interested in knowing that NextStage Evolution has a patented technology that's been doing what's described in this article (and quite a bit more) since 2001. See http://www.bizmediascience.com/2009/06/sentiment_analysis_anyone_part.html for an example.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an experiment, practice using "and" wherever you would have used "but". You may find that your world transforms. We have the illusion that we know how two things are related. Really, we just know that two things are. Example: "I want to go to the beach, but my car doesn't work." The reality created is that my car's condition determines my visit to the beach. "I want to go to the beach, and my car doesn't work." The reality created is that I'm probably not going to be using my car to get to the beach, but I can find another way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistourist attack - 0n Sci-American?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's so confusing... we can hunt deer during deer season, bear during bear season, so why not tourists during tourist season?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistinmansa,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am soooooo confused too! We squeeze olives to get olive oil, soy beans to get soybean oil, palm kernel to get palm oil, whales to get whale oil, shale to get shale oil.... so where do we get baby oil? And suntan oil? And motor oil? (-:
what is a tourist attack, do the tourist attack, or are they the ones attacked, or was the intellectual trying to say terrorist attacks. This is /Freudian slip, the person is so afraid of terrorists they slipped and said tourists.
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