A copy of a recent article by Jeffrey Hancock, Michael Woodworth, and Rachel Boochever, Psychopaths Online: The Linguistic Traces of Psychopathy in Email, Text Messaging and Facebook, is now available on the Members page of this website. Jamie Knowles and Dr. Nicola Gray prepared this summary of the article.
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Study background and aims of the research
The language we use in our day to day lives can reveal a lot of information about our identity, our personality and the way we think and feel (Pennebaker, Mehl, & Niederhoffer, 2003). Some researchers have even likened the language we use to fingerprints, in the sense that we leave traces of ourselves behind through our choice of words.
Psychopathic individuals are interpersonally manipulative, engage in antisocial and criminal behavior, exhibit callous emotions and have impaired feelings of empathy and guilt. Past research has shown that psychopathic individuals differ from non-psychopathic individuals in the language that they use. For example, Hancock (2012) found that psychopathic individuals used more psychologically distanced language (using the past tense instead of present tense, using fewer emotionally intense words) compared to non-psychopathic individuals, when describing their criminal offenses. They concluded that their use of psychologically distanced language reflected some of the emotional deficits that underlie psychopathy.
In the present day, online communications (e-mails, SMS messaging and exchanges over social media) form a central part of our daily lives. This research aimed to look at whether certain psychopathic traits were associated with linguistic patterns present in everyday online communications. The researchers predicted that the participants who scored highly on measures of psychopathy would: (1) exhibit more narcissistic tendencies in their language (using first person pronouns like “I” and “me” more frequently and second person pronouns like “you” less frequently), (2) use more psychologically distant language (increased use of the past tense), (3) focus more on basic needs (such as food, money and shelter) and less on higher level needs (such as family, friendship and love), (4) would produce text that was more difficult to understand, and (5) would use more words associated with anger (such as swear words).
What did they do?
In this study, the researchers recruited 110 undergraduate students aged 18-24 from a University in America. All participants were asked to complete a questionnaire (called the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale) that measured four key aspects of psychopathy: (1) Interpersonal Manipulation, (2) Callous Affect, (3) Erratic Lifestyle, and (4) Criminal Tendency. Next, participants were asked to provide the researchers with their twenty most recent SMS text messages, their twenty most recently sent e-mails and a selection of their recent Facebook status updates, Facebook messages and Facebook wall posts.
The researchers then used a very sophisticated linguistic analysis program to identify certain linguistic patterns in participants’ online communications. The program analysed linguistic patterns such as the type and number of pronouns used, the amount of psychological distancing language used, the number of swear words used, the use of past and present tense and the readability of each of the texts.
What did they find?
The researchers found many illuminating associations between the types of language used by participants, and their scores on the psychopathy questionnaire. More specifically, they found that the use of second person pronouns (words like “you” or “your”) were negatively correlated with participants’ psychopathy scores. This meant that the participants who scored highly on the measure of psychopathy were less likely to refer directly to other people with whom they were having online conversations, supporting the idea that psychopathic individuals reveal their narcissistic tendencies in their communications.
The researchers also found that participants who scored highly on the psychopathy measure used more psychologically distanced language in their online communications (use of past tense, fewer emotive words), indicating that psychopathic individuals are less likely to emotionally connect with what they are saying online. The results also showed a negative correlation between participants’ psychopathy scores and the readability of their online text. This meant that participants high in psychopathic traits produced less comprehensible language in their online communications. This finding is consistent with previous studies that found psychopathic individuals have more speech difficulties and produce language that lacks cohesion and fluency (Brinkley, Newman, Harpur and Johnson, 1999).
Prior to the study, the researchers predicted that psychopathic individuals would use language focused on basic needs (such as food, money and shelter) and less focused on higher level needs (such as family, friendship and love). However, the results showed no relationship between psychopathy scores and references to basic or higher needs. In terms of the hostility of the language used, the researchers found that participants who scored higher on psychopathy, produced more swear words and more words associated with anger. This finding is consistent with psychopathic individuals’ tendency for interpersonal manipulation and also supports the idea that psychopathic individuals have poor behavioural controls and little concern for the feelings of others.
What does this mean?
This study looked to see whether certain linguistic patterns were associated with psychopathy during everyday online communications (SMS messaging, e-mail and Facebook communications). Their findings showed that psychopathic individuals displayed evidence of narcissism, psychological distancing, less comprehensible text and used more words associated with interpersonal hostility through their online communications. This study is consistent with the idea that we reveal a lot about ourselves in the language we choose to use, and these findings provide a useful insight into the linguistic patterns that may be displayed in online interactions with psychopathic individuals.
