http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/01/26/love-me-love-my-language/22927.html
LOVE ME, LOVE MY LANGUAGE
By RICK NAUERT PHD "Senior News Editor"
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on January 26, 2011Researchers have found that people who speak in similar styles tend to be more compatible as couples. Psychologists have known that dating people tend to be attracted to, date, and marry other people who resemble themselves in terms of personality, values, and physical appearance. But these features apparently only skim the surface of what makes a relationship work.A new study looking at compatibility published in "Psychological Science", a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, focused on what are called "function words." These aren't nouns and verbs; they're the words that show how those words relate.They're hard to explicitly define, but we use them all the time - words like "the, a, be, anything, that, will, him," and "and." How we use these words constitutes our writing and speaking style, said study co-author Dr. James Pennebaker of the University of Texas at Austin."Function words are highly social and they require social skills to use," he said."For example, if I'm talking about the article that's coming out, and in a few minutes I make some reference to 'the article,' you and I both know what 'the article' means." But someone who wasn't part of that conversation wouldn't understand.Pennebaker, doctoral student Molly Ireland and their colleagues examined whether the speaking and writing styles couples adopt during conversation with each other predict future dating behavior and the long-term strength of relationships.They conducted two experiments in which a computer program compared partners' language styles.In the first study, pairs of college students had four-minute speed dates while their conversations were recorded. Almost every pair covered the same topics: What's your major? Where are you from? How do you like college?Every conversation sounded more or less the same to the naked ear, but text analysis revealed stark differences in language synchrony. The pairs whose language style matching scores were above average were almost four times as likely to want future contact as pairs whose speaking styles were out of sync.A second study revealed the same pattern in everyday online chats between dating couples over the course of 10 days.Almost 80 percent of the couples whose writing style matched were still dating three months later, compared with approximately 54 percent of the couples who didn't match as well.What people are saying to each other is important, but how they are saying it may be even more telling. People aren't consciously synchronizing their speech, Pennebaker said."What's wonderful about this is we don't really make that decision; it just comes out of our mouths."INTERACTIVE APPLICATION: Are you wondering whether you and your partner have matching language styles? Visit James Pennebaker's "In Synch: Language Style Matching" application online to find out!
IMITATION OF LANGUAGE SUGGESTS BLISSFUL RELATIONSHIP
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/10/05/imitation-of-language-suggests-blissful-relationship/19190.html
By RICK NAUERT PHD "Senior News Editor"
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on October 5, 2010Humans automatically match their language style to fit an environment or to imitate a friend or significant other.New research discovers that happiness in a relationship is often signified by a matching of each other's language styles to an even greater degree than what occurs naturally."When two people start a conversation, they usually begin talking alike within a matter of seconds," says James Pennebaker, University of Texas psychology professor."This also happens when people read a book or watch a movie. As soon as the credits roll, they find themselves talking like the author or the central characters."This tendency is called" language style matching" or LSM. It is the focus of Pennebaker's and co-author Molly Ireland's study published in the"Journal of Personality and Social Psychology"."Because style matching is automatic," says Ireland, a psychology graduate student, "it serves as an unobtrusive window into people's close relationships with others."Ireland and Pennebaker tracked the language used by almost 2,000 college students as they responded to class assignments written in very different language styles. If the essay question was asked in a dry, confusing way, the students answered accordingly.If asked in a flighty, "Valley girl" way, the students punctuated their answers with "like, sorta" and "kinda."The researchers extended their work by analyzing the written language of famous authors. For example, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung wrote to each other almost weekly over a seven-year period as their careers were developing.Using style-matching statistics, Ireland and Pennebaker were able to chart the two men's tempestuous relationship from their early days of joint admiration to their final days of mutual contempt by counting the ways they used pronouns, prepositions and other words, such as the, you, a and as, that have little meaning outside the context of the sentence.The style-matching approach proved to be a powerful bellwether ofmarriages as well.Style-matching scores were calculated between poetry written by two pairs of spouses, Victorian poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning and 20th century poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, which mapped major changes in their relationships."Style words in the spouses' poems were more similar during happier periods of their relationships and less synchronized toward each relationship's end," Ireland says.Differences in style matching between the two couples were revealing as well. Even at the high point of their marriage, Hughes and Plath were less in sync than the historically more harmonious Brownings were at their lowest point.Ireland and Pennebaker are investigating whether LSM during everyday conversation can be used to predict the beginning and end of romantic relationships.Style matching has the potential to quickly and easily reveal whether any given pair of people - ranging from business rivals to romantic partners - are psychologically on the same page and what this means for their future together.
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