When small words foretell academic success: the case of college admissions essays.

The smallest and most commonly used words in English are pronouns, articles, and other function words. Almost invisible to the reader or writer, function words can reveal ways people think and approach topics. A computerized text analysis of over 50,000 college admissions essays from more than 25,000 entering students found a coherent dimension of language use based on eight standard function word categories.

In verbis, vinum? Relating themes in an open-ended writing task to alcohol behaviors.

Alcohol's function as a regulator of emotions has long been denoted in figures of speech, most famously 'in vino, veritas' (in wine, truth). In contrast, we ask whether an individual's self-reported alcohol consumption and related attitudes can be correlated with the words they use to write about alcohol. Participants completed an open-ended essay as part of a survey on alcohol attitudes and behaviors.

Experimental manipulations of perspective taking and perspective switching in expressive writing.

Previous studies suggest that those who naturally vary their pronoun use over the course of expressive writing subsequently report the greatest improvements in physical and mental health. To explore possible perspective taking or perspective switching effects, two studies manipulated writing perspectives about emotional events from either a first-person, second-person, or third-person perspective. In Study 1, 55 students were randomly assigned to one of the three writing perspectives and were asked to write from the same perspective for three 5-minute writing sessions.

Inpatient treatment to online aftercare: e-mailing themes as a function of therapeutic outcomes.

The authors applied the meaning extraction method (MEM) to 4,241 e-mails written by 297 participants of an email-based aftercare program following inpatient psychotherapy. Principal-components analysis of the most frequently used nouns in the e-mails yielded nine components: life decisions and coping, relationship conflict, psychological and physical symptoms, family of origin, social and leisure activities, present family and household, treatment, exercise and diet, and work. Relative to men, women focused more on symptoms, exercise and diet, and family of origin, but less on work.

Variations in the spacing of expressive writing sessions.

Objectives: In a test to determine whether a brief version of the expressive writing (EW) method was viable, 106 college students participated in an experiment dealing with the study of life transitions.

Design: Individuals were randomly assigned to write for 15 minutes on three occasions: either three times separated by 10-min break (1-hour condition), 35-min break (3-hour condition), or 24-hour break (3-day condition).

Methods: Participants were randomly assigned to write about their thoughts and feelings about the transitions (N=80), or to describe daily behaviours surrounding the transitions in a non-emotional way (N=26).

The relations between personality and language use.

The authors of this study provided basic descriptive data on the correlation between personality tests and Korean language use. Native Korean-speaking students (N = 80) at Pusan National University completed 2 personality tests, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI; I. B.