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Little
Words Mean a Lot: The Secret Life of Pronouns
Social
psychologist James Pennebaker of the University of Texas at Austin has
found that when people try to present themselves a certain way,
they tend to select what they
think are appropriate nouns and verbs. However, they are unlikely to
control their use of articles (‘the’) and pronouns (I, you, he, she,
we, they). These small words create the style of a text, which is
less subject to conscious manipulation.
 Pennebaker’s
statistical analyses have shown that these small words may hint at the
healing progress of patients. He has also looked at how they give us
insight into the personalities and changing ideals of public figures,
from political candidates to terrorists. It appears that no body in
psychology has realised that small-scale words can give clues to
large-scale behaviours. He has developed a computer program called
Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC, pronounced “Luke”) that
analyses text. The software has been used to examine other speech
characteristics as well, adding up nouns and verbs in hundreds of
categories to expose buried patterns.
Counting as Clues
Most recently, Pennebaker and his colleagues used LIWC to analyse the candidates’
speeches and interviews during last year’s presidential election. The
software counts how many times a speaker or author uses words in
specific categories, such as emotion or perception, and words that indicate complex
cognitive processes. It also adds up so-called function words such as
pronouns, articles, numerals and conjunctions. Within each of these
major categories are subsets: Are there more menti ons of sad or happy
emotions? Does the speaker prefer “I” and “me” to “us” and “we”? LIWC
answers these quantitative questions; psychologists must then figure
out what the numbers mean. Before LIWC was developed in the mid-1990s,
years of psychological research in which people counted words by hand
established robust connections between word usage and psychological
states or character traits
 The political
candidates, for example, showed clear differences in their speaking
styles. John 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
relationships, which indicated more complex thought processes. He also
tended to be more vague than his Republican rival. (In case you are
interested, Pennebaker’s team has posted a far more in-depth breakdown,
including analyses of the vice presidential candidates, at
www.wordwatchers.wordpress.com)
Skeptics of LIWC’s usefulness point out that many of these characteristics of McCain’s and Obama’s speeches could
be gleaned without the use of a computer program. When the subjects of
analysis are not accessible, however, LIWC may provide a unique
insight. Such was the case with Pennebaker’s study of al Qaeda
communications. In 2007 he and several co-workers, under contract with
the FBI, analysed 58 texts by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri,
bin Laden’s second in command.
The comparison showed how much pronouns are able to tell us. For
example, between 2004 and 2006 the frequency with which al-Zawahiri
used the word “I” tripled, whereas it remained constant in bin Laden’s
writings. “Normally, higher rates of ‘I’ words correspond with feelings
of insecurity, threat and defensiveness.
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, Sherlock Campbell 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
recovering and met rarely with their medical specialist. 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.
He Said, She Said
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It’s All in the Small Print
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.
When you put all this together then it does indeed seem to be important
to read the small print – literally!
Have a great September and On the Border will be back in October with
the pros and cons of perfectionism. Ring any bells….?
References:
J.Dönges. You Are What You Say.
Scientific
American Mind (2009), volume 20, number 4, pages 14-15.
R. S. Campbell and J. W. Pennebaker. The
Secret Life of Pronouns: Flexibility in Writing Style and Physical
Health. Psychological Science
(2003), volume 14, number 1, pages 60-65.
J. W. Pennebaker and C. K. Chung. Computerizes
Text Analysis of Al-Qaeda Transcripts. From The Content Analysis Reader. Edited
by Klaus Krippendorf and Mary Angela Bock. Sage Publications (2007).
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