
People who use more happy words are not necessarily happier - EndXA
https://digest.bps.org.uk/2019/03/29/people-who-use-more-happy-words-are-not-necessarily-happier-an-awkward-finding-for-language-based-emotion-research/
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EndXA
The original paper is available on PsyArxiv:
[https://psyarxiv.com/8fpjn/](https://psyarxiv.com/8fpjn/)

Abstract:

The words that people use have been found to reflect stable psychological
traits, but less is known about the extent to which everyday fluctuations in
spoken language reflect transient psychological states. We explored within-
person associations between spoken words and self- reported state emotion
among 185 participants who wore the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR; an
unobtrusive audio recording device) and completed experience sampling reports
of their positive and negative emotions four times per day for seven days
(1,579 observations). We examined language using the Linguistic Inquiry and
Word Count program (LIWC; theoretically created dictionaries) and open-
vocabulary themes (clusters of data-driven semantically-related words).
Although some studies give the impression that LIWC’s positive and negative
emotion dictionaries can be used as indicators of emotion experience, we found
that when computed on spoken language, LIWC emotion scores were not
significantly associated with self-reports of state emotion experience.
Exploration of other categories of language variables suggests a number of
hypotheses about substantive everyday correlates of momentary positive and
negative emotion that can be tested in future studies. These findings (1)
suggest that LIWC positive and negative emotion dictionaries may not capture
self-reported subjective emotion experience when applied to everyday speech,
(2) emphasize the importance of establishing the validity of language-based
measures within one’s target domain, (3) demonstrate the potential for
developing new hypotheses about personality processes from the open-ended
words that occur in everyday speech, and (4) extend perspectives on intra-
individual variability to the domain of spoken language.

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Cactus2018
Page 74 of 74:

"Happy words" is "Positive Emotion Words", and doesn't include "happy".

    
    
        ok, good, alright, thank, cool, well, sure, nice, wow, love

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dmitryminkovsky
Seems similar in a way to [https://qz.com/1198671/depression-warning-signs-
pay-attentio...](https://qz.com/1198671/depression-warning-signs-pay-
attention-to-the-words-they-use), which I was really struck by because I am
prone to using certain language and did not completely consider how it might
reflect or tied to my underlying mental condition beyond obvious “mean word”
-> “angry”

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Derelicts
The dialectics of the human nature. We have a psychological tendency to talk
about what we lack as a defensive mechanism. That's my few cents after reading
Freud.

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mindfulplay
I am not sure what to make of such survey based studies. They are not science
and often have lots of issues around experiment design, p-values (181
participants).

I really wish these conferences just go away. Great for the authors to
progress their careers but of little or negative value to human kind.

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tag_0
I don't think this dismissal is quite fair, especially regarding this work
being unscientific or having negative value to humanity!

The paper described here isn't survey-based; it actually seems very
quantitative compared to other psych papers (they collected audio for "150,000
recordings" and computationally analyzed the data; the survey part sounds more
like diary data collection). But even if this was entirely survey-based, it
wouldn't necessarily be useless.

I do think that it would be better to cover trends in the literature instead
of individual studies, but in this case it seems the paper has important
implications for sentiment analysis and computational social science in
general. I currently hope conferences don't go away!

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whatshisface
I have seen a lot of studies that have performed "sentiment analysis" by
counting up positive and negative words. I'm glad they are finally realizing
how little sense that makes...

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BurningFrog
Couples who talk about how much they love each other online are, on average,
the unhappiest.

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whatshisface
Unhappy with each other or unhappy overall?

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BurningFrog
In a bad relationship.

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Infinitesimus
Got any good sources you can point us to to learn more?

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BurningFrog
No, but I've read about it in a few places, that seemed reliable.

Since you don't know me, you _should_ dismiss this as an internet rumor.

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BurningFrog
Downvoting me saying you shouldn't trust me, creates an odd little paradox :)

