Biber’s computer-based method suggested that romance novels were more personal, as measured by pronoun use, and relied more on present-tense verbs than mysteries and other genres. In fact, he found that virtually every genre had its own unique linguistic profile.
I came across Biber’s book in the mid-1990s and was fascinated by this thinking. Although he focused on ways to distinguish great and not-so-great literature by analyzing parts of speech, there was no reason that someone couldn’t distinguish people in the same way by looking at their writing. About this time, I teamed up with a former colleague of mine, Laura King, from the University of Missouri, who is among the most creative personality psychologists in the world. Whereas Biber analyzed words in books to distinguish genres of literature, Laura and I wondered if we could use people’s everyday writing to distinguish genres of people. That is, do different writing styles reflect different personalities?
The first step was to get hundreds, even thousands of writing samples from people who were all writing on the same general topic. By good fortune, I routinely teach a large introductory psychology class every year. At the beginning of each semester, my students are introduced to the nature of consciousness and thinking. One of the pioneers of modern-day psychology, William James, wrote extensively in 1890 about the nature of thought—likening it to a stream. One thought or feeling naturally leads to another, which then leads to another. Each thought or sensation stimulates the next, which may be completely unrelated to a thought that appeared a minute earlier or might occur a minute later. Further, as James noted, as our minds float down the stream of consciousness we can be aware of only a single thought at a time.
Since James, many researchers have experimented with stream of consciousness by having people either talk or write continuously about their thoughts as they occur. For many years now, I have required my students to track their thoughts in writing for twenty minutes to give them a better understanding of William James and the nature of consciousness. Although the exercise is required and students submit their writing online, their writing is not graded. We now have almost eight thousand essays that students have given us permission to use for research.
To appreciate stream-of-consciousness writing, imagine how you might write if you were tracking your own thoughts and feelings. The instructions are simple—simply write continuously about your thoughts and feelings as they occur to you. Don’t stop, just write. Here are two fairly standard examples from college students:
The refrigerator is making this funny noise. People are walking down the hall talking loudly. Someone is playing their music very loudly. My stomach is growling. I think I want a snack. My head is itching. My mouth is dry. I want something to drink. I need some more bottled water in my room. I need to repaint my finger nails. The color is chipping off. My ring on my finger needs to be sized, it is too big for me.
Or another:
I am not feeling well. I wonder if Nick got home safely. Maybe I will call him and see if he’s okay. I’m nervous about the psychology test. I should have read the chapters tonight but I am sick. I miss home. I miss my family and my dogs. Buzz is so cute and Red always barks but I still love her. I hope I’m not sick when I have to take this test on Thursday.
In both of these examples, people are writing in the here and now. That is, they report their experiences in the immediate present without much structure or analysis. We often refer to this type of thinking as an example of immediacy . We all think like this occasionally. And there are times we even talk like this—perhaps when tired or simply chatting mindlessly with a close friend—using small words, the present tense, and high rates of personal pronouns, especially I-words.
Across
I came across Biber’s book in the mid-1990s and was fascinated by this thinking. Although he focused on ways to distinguish great and not-so-great literature by analyzing parts of speech, there was no reason that someone couldn’t distinguish people in the same way by looking at their writing. About this time, I teamed up with a former colleague of mine, Laura King, from the University of Missouri, who is among the most creative personality psychologists in the world. Whereas Biber analyzed words in books to distinguish genres of literature, Laura and I wondered if we could use people’s everyday writing to distinguish genres of people. That is, do different writing styles reflect different personalities?
The first step was to get hundreds, even thousands of writing samples from people who were all writing on the same general topic. By good fortune, I routinely teach a large introductory psychology class every year. At the beginning of each semester, my students are introduced to the nature of consciousness and thinking. One of the pioneers of modern-day psychology, William James, wrote extensively in 1890 about the nature of thought—likening it to a stream. One thought or feeling naturally leads to another, which then leads to another. Each thought or sensation stimulates the next, which may be completely unrelated to a thought that appeared a minute earlier or might occur a minute later. Further, as James noted, as our minds float down the stream of consciousness we can be aware of only a single thought at a time.
Since James, many researchers have experimented with stream of consciousness by having people either talk or write continuously about their thoughts as they occur. For many years now, I have required my students to track their thoughts in writing for twenty minutes to give them a better understanding of William James and the nature of consciousness. Although the exercise is required and students submit their writing online, their writing is not graded. We now have almost eight thousand essays that students have given us permission to use for research.
To appreciate stream-of-consciousness writing, imagine how you might write if you were tracking your own thoughts and feelings. The instructions are simple—simply write continuously about your thoughts and feelings as they occur to you. Don’t stop, just write. Here are two fairly standard examples from college students:
The refrigerator is making this funny noise. People are walking down the hall talking loudly. Someone is playing their music very loudly. My stomach is growling. I think I want a snack. My head is itching. My mouth is dry. I want something to drink. I need some more bottled water in my room. I need to repaint my finger nails. The color is chipping off. My ring on my finger needs to be sized, it is too big for me.
Or another:
I am not feeling well. I wonder if Nick got home safely. Maybe I will call him and see if he’s okay. I’m nervous about the psychology test. I should have read the chapters tonight but I am sick. I miss home. I miss my family and my dogs. Buzz is so cute and Red always barks but I still love her. I hope I’m not sick when I have to take this test on Thursday.
In both of these examples, people are writing in the here and now. That is, they report their experiences in the immediate present without much structure or analysis. We often refer to this type of thinking as an example of immediacy . We all think like this occasionally. And there are times we even talk like this—perhaps when tired or simply chatting mindlessly with a close friend—using small words, the present tense, and high rates of personal pronouns, especially I-words.
Across
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