How do I love thee? Let me count the words: The social effects of expressive writing. Psychological Science, 17, A study using expressive writing that finds that people who write about their relationship are more likely to remain in that relationship.
Also, the analysis of Instant Messages IMs finds that certain word-use patterns correlates with relationship success. Tausczik, Y. The psychological meaning of words: LIWC and computerized text analysis methods. Journal of Language and Social Psychology , 29 , A broad summary of the LIWC dimensions and how they are related to various psychological states. A must read for the LIWC researcher. Improving teamwork using real-time language feedback.
Small online working groups received real-time feedback based on computer analyses of their language use. Tellakat, M. How do online learners study? The psychometrics of students' clicking patterns in online classes. PlosONE, March 25, In two large online introductory psychology classes, the ways students accessed study materials outside class strongly predicted course performance. Vine, V. Natural emotion vocabularies as windows on distress and well-being.
Nature Communication, 11, Two large studies with 1, college students and 35, blog authors measured people's use of emotion words in open-ended text. Counter to popular belief, richer and more diverse negative emotion categories were associated with great distress, higher rates of illness, and poorer adjustment.
Watson, D. Health complaints, stress, and disease: Exploring the central role of negative affectivity. Psychological Review , 96 , Writing and Health: Some Practical Advice Writing about emotional upheavals in our lives can improve physical and mental health. Although the scientific research surrounding the value of expressive writing is still in the early phases, there are some approaches to writing that have been found to be helpful.
Keep in mind that there are probably a thousand ways to write that may be beneficial to you. Think of these as rough guidelines rather than Truth. Indeed, in your own writing, experiment on your own and see what works best. Ideally, pick a time at the end of your workday or before you go to bed.
Promise yourself that you will write for a minimum of 15 minutes a day for at least 3 or 4 consecutive days. Once you begin writing, write continuously. If you run out of things to write about, just repeat what you have already written. You can write longhand or you can type on a computer. If you are unable to write, you can also talk into a tape recorder. You can write about the same thing on all days of writing or you can write about something different each day.
It is entirely up to you. Something that you are thinking or worrying about too much Something that you are dreaming about Something that you feel is affecting your life in an unhealthy way Something that you have been avoiding for days, weeks, or years In our research, we generally give people the following instructions for writing: Over the next four days, I want you to write about your deepest emotions and thoughts about the most upsetting experience in your life.
Really let go and explore your feelings and thoughts about it. In your writing, you might tie this experience to your childhood, your relationship with your parents, people you have loved or love now, or even your career.
How is this experience related to who you would like to become, who you have been in the past, or who you are now? Many people have not had a single traumatic experience but all of us have had major conflicts or stressors in our lives and you can write about them as well.
You can write about the same issue every day or a series of different issues. Whatever you choose to write about, however, it is critical that you really let go and explore your very deepest emotions and thoughts. Warning: Many people report that after writing, they sometimes feel somewhat sad or depressed.
Like seeing a sad movie, this typically goes away in a couple of hours. If you find that you are getting extremely upset about a writing topic, simply stop writing or change topics. The writing is for you and for you only. Their purpose is for you to be completely honest with yourself. When writing, secretly plan to throw away your writing when you are finished.
Whether you keep it or save it is really up to you. Some people keep their samples and edit them. That is, they gradually change their writing from day to day. Others simply keep them and return to them over and over again to see how they have changed. Here are some other options : Burn them.
Erase them. Shred them. Flush them. Tear them into little pieces and toss them into the ocean or let the wind take them away. Eat them not recommended. A video of the original writing method can be seen by clicking here. There are some outstanding books by people who have an intuitive and practical approach to writing. Each author approaches journaling or diary writing in very different ways.
Check the various books out and see what works best for you. Adams, Kathleen Sidron Press. Baldwin, Christina Evans Publisher. DeSalvo, Louise A. Beacon Press. Goldberg, Natalie and Guest, Judith Shambhala Press. Pennebaker, James W. NY: Guilford Press. Opening Up by Writing it Down. Expressive Writing: Words that Heal. Enumclaw, WA: Idyll Arbor. Rainer, Tristine The World of Words The words we use reflect who we are. Word choice can serve as a key to people's personality and social situations.
Since the mids, my students, colleagues, and I have been exploring the psychology of word use. Before reading further, you might want to try one or more brief demonstrations that will give you an appreciation of language use, measurement, and personality.
This asks you to respond to a traditional TAT picture. The feedback is fairly broad. Demonstration 3 : Using the meaning extraction strategy, the computer can give you feedback about the ways you see the world depending on how you describe something as simple as a bottle. Demonstration 4: Applying both LIWC and the meaning extraction method, we have developed an interesting way to analyze people's Twitter feeds.
If you have a twitter handle, just enter one and you get feedback about that particular person. If you don't have one, try BarackObama for a demonstration. Very broadly, there are two types of words: content and style. Content words include nouns, regular verbs, and most adjectives and adverbs. Style words include pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, and auxiliary verbs.
The content words tell us what a person is saying; style words convey how they are saying it. They require a certain social skill to both use and interpret. LIWC, of course. You can either purchase it online www.
All I ask in return is the right to keep a copy of your files to add to my growing text archive of over , files. Indeed, if you would like to analyze some of the archived text as part of another project, contact me. Pittsburgh is an amazing city that offers a quality of life rivaled by few other places in the world. Psychology Ph. A Mural of Stories. Upcoming Events. Expand All Collapse All.
Exam Essentials Exam-Day Policies. Exam Accommodations. Exam Tips. Exam Preparation article. Services for Students with Disabilities Students with documented disabilities may be eligible for accommodations for the through-course assessment and the end-of-course exam. Start a Search. Additional Information. For example, the BA degree requires courses in a foreign language and extra humanities hours, whereas the BS degree requires additional hours in the physical and biological sciences.
Students interested in studying human behavior, with a science-oriented supporting curriculum , pursue a Bachelor of Science degree. The BS can successfully prepare students interested in further study in a science-oriented psychology graduate program such as neuroscience or medical school, or other health-related graduate and professional programs e. Complete 6 hours of mathematics core courses. Note that MATH is not an accepted course in this degree program.
Select two from the following options:. A grade of C or higher is required if a course is to be counted in the major field.
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