Social Psychology of Language References
Feel free to insert any references that you think might be relevant to the class. You do not
need to actually include the actual article or URL address. If you have uploaded the article into
the Article folder, then you can make a URL by simply highlighting the authors and pushing on
the link button (the graphic looks like a chain below a globe) that is probably on your Word
toolbar.
Campbell, R.S., & Pennebaker, J.W. (2001). The secret life of pronouns: Linking Latent
Semantic Analysis of writing samples to health. Paper submitted for publication. This is a
reanalysis of three previous writing studies that demonstrates how changes in pronoun use
can predict improvements in health.
Davison, K.P, Pennebaker, J.W., & Dickerson, S.S. (2000). Who talks? The social
psychology of illness support groups. American Psychologist, 55, 205-217. An analysis of
internet and real world support groups for 20 different diseases.
Freud, S. (1901/1914). Mistakes in speech. In The Psychopathology of Everyday Life,
Chap. 5. (trans. A.A. Brill). My notes on this chapter are now on the server. The entire book
is available at: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Freud/Psycho/)
Giles, H., & Wiemann, J.M. (1993). Social psychological studies of language: Current
trends and prospects. American Behavioral Scientist, 36, 262-272.
Gortner, E.-M., & Pennebaker, J.W. (2001). The anatomy of a disaster: Media coverage
and community-wide health effects of the Texas A&M Bonfire Tragedy. Paper delivered at the
American Psychological Association, San Francisco, CA. In the months after the A&M
bonfire disaster, the newspaper coverage gradually shifted linguistically and students
drastically changed the ways they used the student health center.
Gottschalk, L.A. (1997). The unobstrusive measure of psychological traits and states. In
C. Roberts (Ed.), Text analysis for the social sciences (pp 117-129). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum
Publishers.
Gottschalk, L.A., & Gleser, G. (1969). The measurement of psychological states through
the content analysis of verbal behavior. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lacan, J. (1968). The language of the self: The function of language in psychoanalysis.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
Lee, F., & Peterson, C. (1997). Content analysis of archival data. Journal of Consulting
and Clinical Psychology, 65, 959-969. This is an interesting overview of various approaches
to content analysis – focusing on causal attributions and integrative complexity. Nice
historical overview.
McClelland, D.C. (1985). The achieving society. New York: Free Press.
Mehl, M., Pennebaker, J.W., Crow, D.M., Dabbs, J., & Price, J. (in press). The
Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR): A device for sampling naturalistic daily activities and
conversations. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers. A description of a
recording device that people wear for up to 4 days that records for cycles of 30 seconds on
and 12 minutes off.
Mergenthaler, E. (1996). Emotion-abstraction patterns in verbatim protocols: A new way
of describing psychotherapeutic processes. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64,
1306-1315. Mergenthaler and his colleagues in Ulm, Germany have been involved in text
analysis for several decades. Their approach is heavily psychoanalytical but also
mathematical. This paper is interesting because it suggests that the ways words are created
in English reflect cognitive processes such as abstraction.
Miller, G.A. (1995). The science of words. New York: Scientific American. This is a
classic book that I encourage everyone to read. It gives a nice overview of word formation,
theories, and uses. It is the only source that I know that provides an interesting base to
particles. Jamie gives it 5 stars. Check it out.
Newman, M.L., Pennebaker, J.W., Berry, D.S., & Richards, J.M. (2001). Lying words:
Predicting deception from linguistic styles. Paper submitted for publication. Certain words
and word patterns predict when people are telling the truth versus trying to deceive others.
Niederhoffer, K.G., & Pennebaker, J.W. (2001). Linguistic synchrony in social
interaction. Paper submitted for publication. An analysis of three studies wherein people
either interacted on a computer or in real life (from the Nixon Watergate tapes). Linguistic
synchrony – which exists at very low levels of word usage – appears to be a natural
phenomenon unrelated to the degree of liking between the two participants.
Oxman, T. E., Rosenberg, S. D., Schnurr, P. P., & Tucker, G. J. (1988). Diagnostic
classification through content analysis of patients’ speech. American Journal of Psychiatry, 145,
464-468.
Pennebaker, J.W. & Graybeal, A. (2001). Patterns of natural language use: Disclosure,
personality, and social integration. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10, 90-93.. A
recent update on the disclosure paradigm with particular attention paid to the social
dynamics of writing and language.
Pennebaker, J.W. & King, L.A. (1999). Linguistic styles: Language use as an individual
difference. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1296-1312. A series of studies
that reveal how language use reflects personality, health, and social behaviors.
Pennebaker, J.W. & Seagal, J. (1999). Forming a story: The health benefits of narrative.
Journal of Clinical Psychology, 55, 1243-1254. A summary of recent disclosure studies with
an eye towards understanding the nature of narrative.
Pennebaker, J.W. (1997). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process.
Psychological Science, 8, 162-166. A brief overview of the nature of the writing paradigm
and its effects on physical health.
Pennebaker, J.W., Francis, M.E., & Booth, R.J. (2001). Linguistic Inquiry and Word
Count (LIWC): LIWC2001 (this includes the manual only). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Publishers.
This manual describes the most recent version of LIWC, a computerized text analysis
program. Information on its development and psychometric properties is included. (To
order the computer program directly, contact www.erlbaum.com).
Pennebaker, J.W., Mayne, T.J., & Francis, M.E. (1997). Linguistic predictors of adaptive
bereavement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 863-871. The first study from
our lab to show that certain linguistic fingerprints predict longterm health improvement
among participants in various writing studies.
Petrie, K.P., Booth, R.J., & Pennebaker, J.W. (1998). The immunological effects of
thought suppression. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 1264-1272. An
experiment that demonstrates when people try to suppress their thoughts about traumatic
experiences, immune changes result.
Richards, J.M., Beal, W.E., Seagal, J., & Pennebaker, J.W. (2000). The effects of
disclosure of traumatic events on illness behavior among psychiatric prison inmates. Journal of
Abnormal Psychology, 109, 156-160. Writing about traumatic experiences improves the
health of maximum security inmates -- especially those convicted of sexual crimes.
Ricoeur, P. (1976). Interpretation theory: Discourse and the surplus of meaning. Fort
Worth, TX: Texas Christian University Press.
Rosenberg, S. D., & Tucker, G. J. (1979). Verbal behavior and schizophrenia: The
semantic dimension. Archives of General Psychiatry, 36, 1331-1337.
Rude, S.S., Gortner, E.M., & Pennebaker, J.W. (2001). Language use of depressed and
depression-vulnerable college students. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Stirman, S.W., & Pennebaker, J.W. (2001). Word use in the poetry of suicidal and nonsuicidal poets. Psychosomatic Medicine 63, 517-522. A text analysis of the poetry of poets
who committed suicide vs a matched control who did not -- promising evidence for the
power of linguistic tools to understand psychological state.
Stone, L.D. & Pennebaker, J.W. (in press). Trauma in real time: Talking and avoiding
online conversations about the death of Princess Diana. Basic and Applied Social Psychology. A
text analysis of the ways people talked about the death of Princess Diana on AOL chat
groups.
Stone, P. J., Dunphy, D. C., Smith, M. S., & Ogilvy, D. M. (1966). The General
Inquirer: A computer approach to content analysis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.