We have to we-have-to more … you have to you-have-to less …

In the political debates prior to the first elections, the most interesting pronoun + verb combination that I have come across is the tri-grams of we have to and you have to. It seems that Obama was very much a we have to person and seldom a you have to person. Clinton was also more of a we have to person but much less so than Obama. Critically, Clinton was also much more of a you have to person than Obama.

If you want to see some figures, some examples of what these phrases occur with, and read some speculation on what these differences might mean, then click the link below … 

We have to … you have to …?

Your Neighbors Know Who You Are!

It is often said that you can tell a person’s character by the company the person keeps. In some ways, “words” are pretty similar. The words that tend to occur most frequently with any given word tells you something about the word that you’re looking at. To see how we do this – and to see what the candidates REALLY mean … click the link below …

Your Neighbors Know Who You Are! 

from LM, PMM, and the IIS-WordWatchers

It’s official: Obama’s and Clinton’s health plans are the same (relatively)

Finally … we have the answer to the question that America has so deeply (not) cared about over the last 4 months … “How different is Clinton’s plan from Obama’s health care plan?”

 

Using relative semantic analysis (see link to relative semantic analysis) “his plan” and “her plan” have a similarity rating of 0.545. And that’s quite high, semantically speaking …

How high is 0.545? Well, let’s compare it to some other semantic comparisons.

It’s higher than Republicans consider the similarity between the words “the government” and “Washington” (0.513).

It’s higher than Republicans consider the similarity between the words “amnesty” and “illegal immigration” (0.521).

It’s also higher than Democrats consider the similarity between the words “bad idea” and “war in Iraq” (0.388). And, reassuringly, it’s much higher than Democrats consider the similarity between the words “good idea” and “War in Iraq” (0.154).

To learn more about relative semantic similarity, see our link.

from PMM and the IIS-WordWatchers!

Cleveland Democratic debate: We have a tie

The February 26 debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama resulted in the two candidates’ talking in very similar ways. As a refresher, speakers are generally thought to be closer to the audience if they use high rates of “I” words, low rates of “we” words, lots of positive emotion and low levels of negative emotion words.

Compared to the Austin debate of last week, Clinton has lost whatever advantage she may have had over Obama within the debate itself. Check out the graphs below. The results are self-explanatory.

Two aspects of these analyses stand out. First, Clinton and Obama are converging on every dimension of language compared to earlier debates. This is an example of Language Style Matching (or LSM) — something that happens when both people are directly talking with and to each other.

Second, both candidates are showing spectacular drops in 1st person singular, 1st person plural, and both positive and negative emotions compared to other debates. As was apparent from the television images, this was a much more sober, less theatrical performance by both candidates.

Given the similarity in the word use of Obama and Clinton in pronouns and emotion words, the WordWatchers team officially concludes that this debate was a tie.

Texas debates: New turns for Clinton and Obama

For the last month, the stump speeches for Clinton and Obama have shifted in Obama’s favor.  Most striking have been Obama’s increase in 1st person singular pronouns (I, me, my) — which suggest warmth, honesty, and vulnerability — with corresponding decreases in 1st person plural (we, us, our).  We-words hint at the Royal We where the speaker is distant and perhaps a bit condescending.  Just as Obama was becoming more personal, Clinton was going the other way — fewer I’s and more We’s (see the February 18 post).

Particularly perplexing has been how the two speak in debates.  For the January debates, Clinton has used somewhat fewer “I” words and has been fairly similar to Obama in the We-category.  The February 21 debate in Austin, Texas suggests some interesting shifts in both candidates’ speech patterns. 

As you can see in the first graph, the most recent debate shows that Clinton (in red) has evidenced a large jump in I-words whereas Obama (in blue) has dropped.  Psychologically, this hints that Clinton is showing a more vulnerable and perhaps human side at the same time that Obama is becoming somewhat more formal and less personal.

Use of we words continues to be a bit ambiguous. Clinton is still using we-words at high rates whereas Obama is dropping in them.  As a general rule, the more a politician uses we-words, the less positively he or she is viewed.

 

Finally, check out the emotional language trends for both candidates.  For the last two debates, Clinton has been far more positive and optimistic than Obama.  Similarly, Clinton is using far fewer negative emotion words.

Indeed, in the debates themselves, Obama has been consistently more negative in his emotional tone that Clinton.  As a general rule, people prefer speakers who use high rates of positive emotion words and low rates of negative emotions words.

In the Linguistic Playoffs, then, we pronounce the Winner of the Texas Democratic Debate to be Hillary Clinton.  Keep in mind that the patterns for the debates aren’t closely matching those of the stump speeches nor the T.V. ads you may be watching.  But if you were absolutely truly uncommitted and had no preconceptions of the candidates and you didn’t listen to the subtance of what they were talking about (oh, and you ignored their tone of voice and what they looked like), we feel that you would agree with our conclusions.

JWP 

Spinning

David Skillicorn and his colleagues at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario have been doing some important work on how the various candidates convey truthful messages.  Using a variety of computational linguistics techniques, they determine which candidates are most likely to tell a straight story versus who  provide more spin than substance.  Check out his recent work on the topic:

http://www.cs.queensu.ca/home/skill/uselection/

Overall, Skillicorn finds that in speeches over the last two months that McCain is the most direct and truthful and that Obama provides the most spin.

 JWP

Obama and Clinton stump speeches: I and we

This is a quick update on how Obama and Clinton are using first person singular (“I”) and plural (“we”) pronouns in their stump speeches.  As noted in some earlier posts, use of I-words has been linked to honesty, being more personal, and being less threatening.  Use of “we” words is generally linked to more psychological distancing between the speaker and the audience — as in the Royal We.

As you can see from the graphs, Obama and Clinton have been shifting in their use of pronouns over the last two months.  The light blue bar refers to pronouns in their January stump speeches and the dark blue are for February.  A number of interesting patterns are emerging.  Whereas Clinton is dropping in her 1st person singular, Obama is increasing. 

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As you can see in the second graph, Clinton’s increases in we-words are matched by Obama’s drops.  As is also clear, Clinton is generally using “we” words at far higher rates than is Obama.  There is a certain irony in these findings.  Obama’s mantra is “Yes, we can!” even though  his use of we is modest.

The overall patterns indicate some social and psychological shifts between the two candidates.  Unlike the debates that have occurred so far, the stump speeches are revealing a warmer, more socially connected Obama and a more disconnected Clinton.

Watch Thursday’s debates to see if these patterns maintain themselves.  Some findings (which will be discussed soon ) indicate that The Debater Obama is a different person than The Speech Maker Obama.

JWP

Obama: Psychological Fragility or Flexibility?

People differ in the ways they face upheavals in their lives.  Many of us have natural defenses that can be seen in daily language.  One of the most interesting is the ways people use “I” and “we.”  For example, when people are feeling great emotional pain, it is common that they avoid 1st person singular pronouns such as I, me, and my.    Indeed, after the September 11, 2001 attacks, our analyses of thousands of blogs revealed that bloggers dropped in their use of “I” words and increased in their use of “we” words for several days.  By focusing attention outside of themselves, they probably felt less pain.

Of the four surviving candidates for president, all have suffered losses and experienced wins in the various primaries.  This gives us a unique opportunity to see how each person talks in their post-election speeches.

 In the bar graphs, the gray bars depict the percentage of “I” or “we” words of each candidate in their speech(es) after it was announced that they lost the election.  The yellow bars represent the candidates’ language after it was announced that they had won.  In some cases, such as Super Tuesday, all candidates won some and lost others.  If they both won and lost, we coded it as a win.

In the first graph, it is clear that McCain is the most steady in his use of 1st person singular.  Whether he won or lost, he used “I” words at almost exactly the same rate.  Obama, on the other hand, used virtually no “I” words after a loss but was comparable to everyone else when he won.

The second graph shows the candidates’ use if “we” words.  Note again that McCain is fairly steady — as are Clinton and Huckabee — in terms of the use of “we” whether they won or lost.  But look at Obama; he again stands out.  When he lost, his use of “we” words skyrockets.  In comparison, when he wins, “we” words are lower for him than any of the other candidates.

What does this mean?  Obama, in comparison with the other candidates, uses language that allows him to escape from himself after losing.  He moves from a personal to an interpersonal form of talking in the face of an upheaval. 

Is Obama emotionally flexible or emotionally fragile?  Compared to McCain and Clinton, he certainly has the least experience with the rollercoaster of politics.  To the degree this strategy helps him to cope with loss, this is a healthy strategy.  It also suggests a greater emotional vulnerability than we typically see. 

JWP

Primary Leaders Use Different Words

One aspect of language is the variety of words that are used in and across utterances.  If you use a greater variety of different words, then the lexical diversity is higher.  High lexical diversity generally means that there is greater amount of content and the speaker has covered more topics, and used a wider variety of words to describe those topics.

Our analyses of the debates leading up to the primaries indicate that the winners have used more different words.  According to Malvern and Richard’s (1997) measure of lexical diversity, Senators Clinton, Obama, and McCain showed greater lexical diversity than did all of the other candidates. 

However,  another measure of lexical diversity, called The Measure of Textual Lexical Diversity (MTLD) may provide a more accurate estimate of lexical diversity because it is not influenced by the number of words used in the speech.  As shown in the graph, Senators Clinton and Obama were the only speakers in the debates to show high lexical diversity as compared to the other speakers.    

These analyses, combined with the outcome (so far) from the primaries, indicates that their covering a greater amount of content may have welcomed by American listeners.

Our analyses also indicate that Senators Clinton, Obama, and McCain have less cohesive language.  Because they are using more diverse words.  The graph to the left  shows that there is less overlap between nouns (things, objects) across adjacent sentences in their utterances. This means that listeners need to make more inferences to understand the relationships between their sentences.  It seems that the top-runners asked their listeners to think more, and read between the lines.  Cognitive research indicates that doing so can actually improve comprehension because it forces the listener to more actively process what is being said.

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But, Senators Clinton and Obama also include more causal connectives and cues in their language to indicate the relationships between causally related concepts.  For example, they are more likely to use connective such as because, so that, or consequently.

In summary, the current leaders in the primaries, Senators Clinton, Obama, and McCain have tended to use a greater variety of words and have tended to have less overlap between sentences.  However, Senators Clinton and Obama also tend to include more connectives that indicate the nature of causal forces, actions and relationships.  These connectives are important because they help the listener infer the intended relationship between ideas.

DM

No, not, never: Negations in political language

Think of the greatest presidential quotes of the last half century:

• Ask not what your country can do for you… JFK
• I am not a crook… Richard Nixon
• Read my lips: No new taxes.  Bush 41
• I did not have sex with that woman.  Bill Clinton

Any language scholar should get tingles when reading these moving statements.  The one thing they have in common is the use of a negation — a negating or denying of a thought, feeling, or behavior. 

In the 1950s and 60s, David McClelland, a Harvard personality psychologist, argued that people who used a high number of negations were attempting to control their needs for power and dominance.  They were thinking about doing something but were trying to block the thought after it had already appeared.  More recently, Dan Wegner, also a Harvard psychologist, has devoted much of his career to studying how people try to inhibit their thoughts. He’s the scientist who told people “don’t think about a white bear.”  Turns out most people are lousy at suppressing their thoughts.  Both McClelland and Wegner point to the stressful world of actively not doing or thinking about things.

Consider when we use words like no, not, and never.  I could say I’m sad or that I’m not happy.  If I say I’m not happy, I am indicating that I’m thinking about the world along a happiness continuum.  The concept of happiness is in my mind but I’m not high on it.  If I claim I won’t raise taxes, I am thinking along a taxation dimension.  That which is being negated is something I am thinking about. 

 JFK assumed that people were really thinking “what can my country do for me?”  Nixon was probably thinking “people believe I’m a crook.”  Bush was thinking about taxes and Clinton was thinking about sex.  It’s interesting that Nixon didn’t say, “I am an honest man” or that Clinton didn’t remark, “I had a platonic relationship.”

 More broadly, there are personality differences among people who use negations at high rates versus those who use them at lower rates.  McClelland would argue that high negation users are power-hungry people who are trying to control their urges.  How do the candidates differ in their use of negations in the debates?  As you can see in the graph, Huckabee and Romney are the two winners in the negations category.

This raises some interesting questions about what Huckabee and Romney are trying to inhibit.  A look at their negations in the last Republican debate reveals some interesting trends. (For a general list of Huckabee’s and Romney’s negation phrases in The January 11 New Hampshire debate, click here.)

Some Huckabee negations:

• I hope we’re not headed for a recession..
• They ought not be afraid of seeing a police car.
• I’m not the least bit ashamed of my faith or the doctrines in it.

Some Romney negations:

• I just haven’t heard your position; I don’t mean to be critical…
• …Iran represents a very serious threat. I do not believe this action was taken by rogue elements…
• …but we’re not going to say to people who’ve come here illegally, “You have a special pathway…”

Huckabee is thinking about a recession, about feeling fear when seeing a police car, and feelings of shame about his faith.  And Romney is thinking that he might be critical, that rogue elements may be involved, or that illegal aliens have a special pathway.  Huckabee and Romney ARE thinking along these dimensions and, at the same time, they are making an effort to distance themselves from their thoughts.

What’s it all mean?

Some researchers would conclude the Huckabee and Romney are more motivated by power than the other candidates.  Others would argue that the two are holding back or inhibiting their thoughts and feelings more than others.  That is, they are concealing sides of themselves that they don’t want others to see. (But then, who isn’t).

It might be worthwhile to start paying attention to what candidates negate or deny.  If someone says, “I’m not saying xxx” you can translate that into “I am thinking about xxx.”

JWP