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Depression, negative emotionality, and self-referential language: A multi-lab, multi-measure, and multi-language-task research synthesis
- Source :
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 116:817-834
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- American Psychological Association (APA), 2019.
-
Abstract
- Depressive symptomatology is manifested in greater first-person singular pronoun use (i.e., I-talk), but when and for whom this effect is most apparent, and the extent to which it is specific to depression or part of a broader association between negative emotionality and I-talk, remains unclear. Using pooled data from N = 4,754 participants from 6 labs across 2 countries, we examined, in a preregistered analysis, how the depression-I-talk effect varied by (a) first-person singular pronoun type (i.e., subjective, objective, and possessive), (b) the communication context in which language was generated (i.e., personal, momentary thought, identity-related, and impersonal), and (c) gender. Overall, there was a small but reliable positive correlation between depression and I-talk (r = .10, 95% CI [.07, .13]). The effect was present for all first-person singular pronouns except the possessive type, in all communication contexts except the impersonal one, and for both females and males with little evidence of gender differences. Importantly, a similar pattern of results emerged for negative emotionality. Further, the depression-I-talk effect was substantially reduced when controlled for negative emotionality but this was not the case when the negative emotionality-I-talk effect was controlled for depression. These results suggest that the robust empirical link between depression and I-talk largely reflects a broader association between negative emotionality and I-talk. Self-referential language using first-person singular pronouns may therefore be better construed as a linguistic marker of general distress proneness or negative emotionality rather than as a specific marker of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
- Subjects :
- Adult
Male
Sociology and Political Science
Social Psychology
media_common.quotation_subject
Emotions
Self-concept
UFSP13-4 Dynamics of Healthy Aging
Context (language use)
PsycINFO
Developmental psychology
Young Adult
Sex Factors
3312 Sociology and Political Science
Germany
Humans
Personality
Association (psychology)
Language
media_common
Depressive Disorder
3207 Social Psychology
Pronoun
10093 Institute of Psychology
Linguistics
Middle Aged
Possessive
Self Concept
United States
Self-reference
Female
150 Psychology
Psychology
Social psychology
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 19391315 and 00223514
- Volume :
- 116
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....71eedab7cc58056c2821032ea8805b0f