“A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words”: Language Use in the Autophotographic Essay

The authors applied Pennebaker’s Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program to autophotographic essays addressing the question, “Who are you?” to test hypotheses about individuality and social connectedness. Specifically, the authors tested whether insight-oriented words would correlate with i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Personality & social psychology bulletin 2005-04, Vol.31 (4), p.536-548
Main Authors: Burke, Philip A., Dollinger, Stephen J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Autobiography as Topic
Cognition - physiology
Cognitive complexity
Connectedness
Ego
Essays
Female
Humans
Individuality
Language
Life stories
Linguistics - methods
Male
Middle Aged
Personality
Predictive Value of Tests
Self Concept
Sex Factors
Social Identification
Students - psychology
Surveys and Questionnaires
Words
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Summary:The authors applied Pennebaker’s Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program to autophotographic essays addressing the question, “Who are you?” to test hypotheses about individuality and social connectedness. Specifically, the authors tested whether insight-oriented words would correlate with individuality ratings, defining essays that portray unique persons who creatively explore the self. Second, the authors tested whether connectedness, operationalized by photos of people-touching and self with others, would correlate with social process words. In 164 student photo essays, greater linguistic cognitive complexity characterized individuality, even when controlling for needs for cognition and uniqueness, and verbal intelligence. Connectedness predicted social words. These findings show that autophotography essays do capture complex self-reflective thought and suggest LIWC may be a valuable tool for understanding the expression of individuality and relatedness.
ISSN:0146-1672
1552-7433
DOI:10.1177/0146167204271714