We are in the midst of a technological revolution whereby, for the first time, researchers can link daily word use to a broad array of real-world behaviors. This article reviews several computerized text analysis methods and describes how Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) was created and validated. LIWC is a transparent text analysis program that counts words in psychologically meaningful categories. Empirical results using LIWC demonstrate its ability to detect meaning in a wide variety of experimental settings, including to show attentional focus, emotionality, social relationships, thinking styles, and individual differences.
Alpers, G.W., Winzelberg, A.J., Classen, C., Roberts, H., Dev, P., Koopman, C., et al. (2005). Evaluation of computerized text analysis in an Internet breast cancer support group. Computers in Human Behavior, 21, 361-376.
2.
Beaudreau, S.A., Storandt, M., & Strube, M.J. ( 2006). A comparison of narratives told by younger and older adults. Experimental Aging Research, 32, 105-117.
3.
Berlyne, D.E. ( 1960). Conflict, arousal, and curiosity. New York: McGraw-Hill.
4.
Boals, A., & Klein, K. ( 2005). Word use in emotional narratives about failed romantic relationships and subsequent mental health. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 24, 252-268.
5.
Bond, G.D., & Lee, A.Y. ( 2005). Language of lies in prison: Linguistic classification of prisoners’ truthful and deceptive natural language. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19, 313-329.
6.
Boroditsky, L., Schmidt, L.A., & Phillips, W. ( 2003). Sex, syntax, and semantics. In D. Gentner & S. Goldin-Meadow (Eds.), Language in mind: Advances in the study of language and thought (pp. 61-79). Cambridge : MIT Press.
7.
Bradac, J.J. ( 1986). Threats to generalization in the use of elicited, purloined, and contrived messages in human communication research. Communication Quarterly, 34, 55-65.
8.
Bradac, J.J. ( 1999). Language1 . . . n and Social Interaction1 . . . n: Nature abhors uniformity. Research on Language and Social Interaction , 32, 11-20.
9.
Bulwer-Lytton, E. ( 1842). Paul Clifford. Leipzig, Germany: B. Tauchnitz.
10.
Chung, C.K., & Pennebaker, J.W. (2007). The psychological function of function words. In K. Fiedler (Ed.), Social communication: Frontiers of social psychology (pp. 343-359). New York: Psychology Press.
11.
Davis, D., & Brock, T.C. ( 1975). Use of first person pronouns as a function of increased objective self-awareness and performance feedback. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 11, 381-388.
12.
Freud, S. ( 1901). Psychopathology of everyday life. New York: Basic Books.
13.
Gonzales, A.L., Hancock, J.T., & Pennebaker, J.W. (in press). Language indicators of social dynamics in small groups. Communication Research.
14.
Gottschalk, L.A., & Bechtel, R. ( 1993). Computerized content analysis of natural language or verbal texts. Palo Alto, CA: Mind Garden.
15.
Gottschalk, L.A., & Gleser, G.C. ( 1969). The measurement of psychological states through the content analysis of verbal behavior. Berkeley: University of California Press.
16.
Gottschalk, L.A., Gleser, G.C., Daniels, R., & Block, S. ( 1958). The speech patterns of schizophrenic patients: a method of assessing relative degree of personal disorganization and social alienation . Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 127, 153-166.
17.
Graesser, A.C., McNamara, D.S., Louwerse, M.M., & Cai, Z. ( 2004). Coh-metrix: analysis of text on cohesion and language . Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers , 36, 193-202.
18.
Greenwald, A.G., McGhee, D.E., & Schwartz, J.L.K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464-1480.
19.
Gunsch, M.A., Brownlow, S., Haynes, S.E., & Mabe, Z. ( 2000). Differential linguistic content of various forms of political advertising. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media , 44, 27-42.
20.
Hancock, J.T., Curry, L.E., Goorha, S., & Woodworth, M. ( 2008). On lying and being lied to: A linguistic analysis of deception in computer-mediated communication. Discourse Processes , 45, 1-23.
21.
Hart, R.P. ( 1984). Verbal style and the presidency: A computer-based analysis . New York: Academic Press.
22.
Hartley, J., Pennebaker, J.W., & Fox, C. ( 2003). Abstracts, introductions and discussions: How far do they differ in style? Scientometrics, 57, 389-398.
23.
Holmes, D., Alpers, G.W., Ismailji, T., Classen, C., Wales, T., Cheasty, V., et al. (2007). Cognitive and emotional processing in narratives of women abused by intimate partners. Violence Against Women , 13, 1192-1205.
24.
Holtzman, W.H. ( 1950). Validation studies of the Rorschach test: Shyness and gregariousness in the normal superior adult. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 6, 343-347.
25.
Kacewicz, E., Pennebaker, J.W., Davis, M., Jeon, M., & Graesser, A.C. (2009). The language of social hierarchies. Manuscript submitted for publication.
26.
Kahn, J.H., Tobin, R.M., Massey, A.E., & Anderson, J.A. (2007). Measuring emotional expression with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. American Journal of Psychology, 120, 263-286.
27.
Kowalski, R.M. ( 2000). "I was Only Kidding!" Victims’ and perpetrators’ perceptions of teasing. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 231-241.
28.
Kross, E., & Ayduk, O. ( 2008). Facilitating adaptive emotional analysis: Distinguishing distanced-analysis of depressive experiences from immersed-analysis and distraction . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 924-938.
29.
Leshed, G., Hancock, J.T., Cosley, D., McLeod, P.L., & Gay, G. ( 2007). Feedback for guiding reflection on teamwork practices . In Proceedings of the 2007 international ACM conference on supporting group work (pp. 217-220). New York: Association for Computing Machinery Press.
30.
Maass, A., Karasawa, M., Politi, F., & Suga, S. ( 2006). Do verbs and adjectives play different roles in different cultures? A cross-linguistic analysis of person representation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 734-750.
31.
Martindale, C. ( 1990). The clockwork muse: The predictability of artistic change . New York: Basic Books.
32.
McClelland, D.C. ( 1979). Inhibited power motivation and high blood pressure in men. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 88, 182-190.
33.
Mehl, M.R., Gosling, S.D., & Pennebaker, J.W. (2006). Personality in its natural habitat: Manifestations and implicit folk theories of personality in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 862-877.
34.
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.
35.
Miller, G. ( 1995). The science of words. New York: Scientific American Library.
36.
Newman, M.L., Groom, C.J., Handelman, L.D., & Pennebaker, J.W. (2008). Gender differences in language use: An analysis of 14,000 text samples. Discourse Processes , 45, 211-236.
37.
Newman, M.L., Pennebaker, J.W., Berry, D.S., & Richards, J.M. (2003). Lying words: Predicting deception from linguistic styles. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 665-675.
38.
Oberlander, J., & Gill, A.J. ( 2006). Language with character: A stratified corpus comparison of individual differences in e-mail communication. Discourse Processes, 42, 239-270.
39.
Pasupathi, M. ( 2007). Telling and the remembered self: Linguistic differences in memories for previously disclosed and previously undisclosed events. Memory, 15, 258-270.
40.
Pennebaker, J.W. ( 1982). The psychology of physical symptoms. New York: Springer-Verlag.
41.
Pennebaker, J.W., & Beall, K.S. ( 1986). Confronting a traumatic event: Toward an understanding of inhibition and disease. Journal of Abnormal Psychology , 95, 274-281.
42.
Pennebaker, J.W., Booth, R.J., & Francis, M.E. ( 2007). Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count: LIWC [Computer software] . Austin, TX: LIWC.net.
43.
Pennebaker, J.W., Chung, C.K., Ireland, M., Gonzales, A., & Booth, R.J. ( 2007). The development and psychometric properties of LIWC2007 [LIWC manual]. Austin, TX: LIWC.net .
44.
Pennebaker, J.W., & King, L.A. ( 1999). Linguistic styles: Language use as an individual difference . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1296-1312.
45.
Pennebaker, J.W., & Lay, T.C. ( 2002). Language use and personality during crises: Analyses of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s press conferences. Journal of Research in Personality, 36, 271-282.
46.
Pennebaker, J.W., Mayne, T.J., & Francis, M.E. ( 1997). Linguistic predictors of adaptive bereavement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 863-871.
47.
Pennebaker, J.W., Slatcher, R.B., & Chung, C.K. ( 2005). Linguistic markers of psychological state through media interviews: John Kerry and John Edwards in 2004, Al Gore in 2000. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 5, 197-204.
48.
Pennebaker, J.W., & Stone, L.D. ( 2003). Words of wisdom: Language use over the life span. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 291-301.
49.
Rorschach, H. ( 1921). Psychodiagnostik. Leipzig, Germany: Ernst Bircher Verlag.
50.
Rosenberg, S.D., & Tucker, G.J. ( 1978). Verbal behavior and schizophrenia: The semantic dimension . Archives of General Psychiatry, 36, 1331-1337.
51.
Rude, S., Gortner, E.M., & Pennebaker, J. (2004). Language use of depressed and depression-vulnerable college students. Cognition & Emotion, 18, 1121-1133.
52.
Semin, G.R., & Fiedler, K. ( 1988). The cognitive functions of linguistic categories in describing persons: Social cognition and language. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 558-568.
53.
Sexton, J.B., & Helmreich, R.L. (2000). Analyzing cockpit communications: The links between language, performance, and workload. Human Performance in Extreme Environments, 5, 63-68.
54.
Simmons, R.A., Chambless, D.L., & Gordon, P.C. ( 2008). How do hostile and emotionally overinvolved relatives view relationships? What relatives’ pronoun use tells us. Family Process, 47, 405-419.
Slatcher, R.B., Vazire, S., & Pennebaker, J.W. (2008). Am "I" more important than "we"? Couples’ word use in instant messages. Personal Relationships, 15, 407-424.
57.
Stirman, S.W., & Pennebaker, J.W. (2001). Word use in the poetry of suicidal and nonsuicidal poets. Psychosomatic Medicine , 63, 517-522.
58.
Stone, P.J., Dunphy, D.C., Smith, M.S., & Ogilvie, D.M. ( 1966). The general inquirer: A computer approach to content analysis. Cambridge: MIT Press.
59.
Tetlock, P.E. ( 1981). Pre- to post-election shifts in presidential rhetoric: Impression management or cognitive adjustment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 207-212.
60.
Weintraub, W. ( 1981). Verbal behavior: Adaptation and psychopathology. New York: Springer.
61.
Weintraub, W. ( 1989). Verbal behavior in everyday life. New York: Springer.
62.
Winter, D.G. ( 1998). A motivational analysis of the Clinton first term and the 1996 presidential campaign. The Leadership Quarterly, 9, 367-376.
63.
Wolf, M., Sedway, J., Bulik, C.M., & Kordy, H. ( 2007). Linguistic analyses of natural written language: Unobtrusive assessment of cognitive style in eating disorders. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 40, 711-717.
64.
Zhou, L., Burgoon, J.K., Nunamaker, J.F., & Twitchell, D. ( 2004). Automating linguistics-based cues for detecting deception in text-based asynchronous computer-mediated communications. Group Decision and Negotiation, 13, 81-106.
