Depression, negative emotionality, and self-referential language

A multi-lab, multi-measure, and multi-language-task research synthesis

Bibliographic Data

ID6203565
AuthorsAllison Mary Tackman (University of Arizona), David A Sbarra (0000-0001-6727-6552, University of Arizona), Angela L Carey (University of Arizona), M Brent Donnellan (Michigan State University), Andrea B Horn (0000-0003-2729-7062, University of Zurich), Nicholas S Holtzman (0000-0003-0392-0083, Georgia Southern University), To''Meisha S Edwards, To'Meisha S Edwards (Georgia Southern University), James W Pennebaker (0000-0001-9091-214X, The University of Texas at Austin), Matthias R Mehl (0000-0003-2698-5007, University of Arizona)
Year2019
Volume116
Issue5
Pages817-834
Publication date2019-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1037/pspp0000187
PMID29504797
OpenAlexW2790228540
LanguageEN
Citations received41
References cited47

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)

Context (archaeology) · Developmental psychology · Distress · Emotionality · Linguistics · Possessive · Pronoun · Sadness · Clinical Psychology · Identity, Memory, and Therapy · Mental Health Research Topics · Mental Health via Writing · Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOI