Pronoun Use Reflects Standings in Social Hierarchies

Kacewicz, Ewa; Pennebaker, James W.; Davis, Matthew D.; Jeon, Moongee; Graesser, Arthur C.

doi:10.1177/0261927x13502654

Cited by 417 publications

(372 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…The downside, however, is that such personable language may have reinforced the Twitter user's lack of social status and called his or her competence into question. 10,11 Although women used "I" more than did men, our results showed no meaningful differences in "I" use between men and women actors with many followers, a finding that is in contrast to documented literature using multiple samples indicating that women use the first person-pronoun more often than do men. 1,3 Although many LIWC studies use populations not limited to college-aged students, 8,18 most include a preponderance of persons in the college-age range whereas our sample did not.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

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The “I”s have it: Sex and Social Status Differences on Twitter

Beach¹,

Brownlow²,

Greene³

et al. 2016

Soc Behav Res Pract Open J

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We examined the use of "I" in Tweets posted by 50 famous people during a one-month window. The linguistic inquiry and word count (LIWC) was implemented to determine the percentage of 140-character Tweets that used the personal pronoun "I". Our findings showed patterns typically seen in natural speech. Specifically, women used the self-referent focus "I" significantly more often than men did, and lower status (operationalized as the number of Twitter followers) people used "I" significantly more often than those with higher status. Men of low social status used significantly more "I" language than did women with lower social status, but women and men of higher social status used "I" equally. Our findings suggest that social status may alter sex-linked communication, with the use of an informal and friendly style that includes self-referencing by men of lower social status, perhaps in an effort to engage more people and enhance their own status through more self-referencing.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…7,8 In contrast, use of "you" in social media is a marker of people who are open and conscientious. 9 First-person pronouns are more common in the language of people of lower status, 10 and they also decrease judgments of a speaker's competence.…”

Section: Pennebakermentioning

confidence: 99%

The “I”s have it: Sex and Social Status Differences on Twitter

Beach¹,

Brownlow²,

Greene³

et al. 2016

Soc Behav Res Pract Open J

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“…People in power seek to influence others through linguistic and paralinguistic means that convey confidence, decisiveness, and competence (Kacewicz et al 2013). Observations of communication in teaching contexts and organizations, eyewitness testimony, and experimental conditions found that, compared to the powerless, powerful people use more plural (we) than singular (I) pronouns (Kacewicz et al 2013) and tend to use fewer disclaimers (e.g., "I don't really know"), hesitations, hedges ("sort of," "maybe"), tag questions ("it is very cold out today, isn't it"), and intensifiers (e.g., "so;" Reid & Ng 1999, Thomas et al 2004). Together, these means of verbal communication effectively affect perceptions of status and power in observers, increasing persuasion and ability to attain desired ends (wanting and seeking).…”

Section: Power Energizes Thought Speech and Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Power Affects People: Activating, Wanting, and Goal Seeking

Guinote

2017

Annu. Rev. Psychol.

284

274

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Sociocognitive research has demonstrated that power affects how people feel, think, and act. In this article, I review literature from social psychology, neuroscience, management, and animal research and propose an integrated framework of power as an intensifier of goal-related approach motivation. A growing literature shows that power energizes thought, speech, and action and orients individuals toward salient goals linked to power roles, predispositions, tasks, and opportunities. Power magnifies self-expression linked to active parts of the self (the active self ), enhancing confidence, self-regulation, and prioritization of efforts toward advancing focal goals. The effects of power on cognitive processes, goal preferences, performance, and corruption are discussed, and its potentially detrimental effects on social attention, perspective taking, and objectification of subordinates are examined. Several inconsistencies in the literature are explained by viewing power holders as more flexible and dynamic than is usually assumed.

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“…People reveal a wealth of information about their feelings and intentions through verbal communication (8)(9)(10). The speaker's underlying motives notwithstanding, talking about helping others makes positive impressions upon an audience (11).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

A decline in prosocial language helps explain public disapproval of the US Congress

Frimer

Gebauer

Zhu

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Talking about helping others makes a person seem warm and leads to social approval. This work examines the real world consequences of this basic, social-cognitive phenomenon by examining whether record-low levels of public approval of the US Congress may, in part, be a product of declining use of prosocial language during Congressional debates. A text analysis of all 124 million words spoken in the House of Representatives between 1996 and 2014 found that declining levels of prosocial language strongly predicted public disapproval of Congress 6 mo later. Warm, prosocial language still predicted public approval when removing the effects of societal and global factors (e.g., the September 11 attacks) and Congressional efficacy (e.g., passing bills), suggesting that prosocial language has an independent, direct effect on social approval.US Congress | language | impression formation | public approval | LIWC A s recently as 2002, public approval of Congress was reliably over 50% and as high as 84%. In late 2013, though, public approval reached an all-time low, with less than 10% of Americans expressing support (1). What caused this dramatic decline in public approval in just over a decade? One explanation is that the public held Congress responsible for societal and global problems (e.g., a weak economy) (2, 3). A second explanation is that the public disapproves of ineffective governance. For example, public approval of Congress tends to drop when Republicans and Democrats are polarized against one another and when Congress conflicts with the President (4, 5). We test a third explanation that has less to do with action and more to do with talk (6). We suggest that recent public disapproval partly resulted from the disappearance of warm, prosocial language in Congressional discourse.Previous experimental research has shown that presenting a warm and prosocial demeanor increases social approval (7). People reveal a wealth of information about their feelings and intentions through verbal communication (8-10). The speaker's underlying motives notwithstanding, talking about helping others makes positive impressions upon an audience (11). We investigated whether this well-documented finding can explain public perceptions of Congress. Specifically, we asked whether the recent rise of public disapproval of Congress is predicted by declining prosocial language of elected representatives.To measure prosocial language, we computer analyzed all 123,927,807 words spoken in session of the US House of Representatives between 1996 and 2014. Our approach was to look for linguistic markers of prosocial language; we used content analysis software (12) to calculate the proportion of words in the target text that matched entries in a validated dictionary of prosocial words (13). We then compared levels of prosocial language within each month of Congress with their approval ratings by the American public (14) and found a striking match. Fig. 1 shows that levels of prosocial language and the public's approval followed the same trajectory ...

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Pronoun Use Reflects Standings in Social Hierarchies

Cited by 417 publications

References 35 publications

The “I”s have it: Sex and Social Status Differences on Twitter

The “I”s have it: Sex and Social Status Differences on Twitter

How Power Affects People: Activating, Wanting, and Goal Seeking

A decline in prosocial language helps explain public disapproval of the US Congress

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