Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The Mind Versus the Body in Political (and Nonpolitical) Discourse
T2 - Linguistic Evidence for an Ideological Signature in U.S. Politics
AU - Robinson, Michael D.
AU - Boyd, Ryan L.
AU - Fetterman, Adam K.
AU - Persich, Michelle R.
PY - 2017/9/1
Y1 - 2017/9/1
N2 - Ideological liberals may focus on mental operations to a greater extent than bodily operations, whereas this pattern may be reversed among conservatives. Although there are suggestive sources of evidence, prior research has not directly examined relations between political ideology and this mind–body distinction. The present investigation did so by content-coding texts using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count program and its cognitive and bodily process categories. Three studies involving posts to political news websites (Study 1), presidential State of the Union addresses (Study 2), and writing samples by laypersons (Study 3) converged on the hypothesis that texts produced by those with liberal ideologies would score positively in mind–body terms (reflecting a greater relative mental focus), whereas texts produced by those with conservative ideologies would score negatively in mind–body terms (reflecting a greater bodily focus), a novel linguistic signature of political ideology.
AB - Ideological liberals may focus on mental operations to a greater extent than bodily operations, whereas this pattern may be reversed among conservatives. Although there are suggestive sources of evidence, prior research has not directly examined relations between political ideology and this mind–body distinction. The present investigation did so by content-coding texts using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count program and its cognitive and bodily process categories. Three studies involving posts to political news websites (Study 1), presidential State of the Union addresses (Study 2), and writing samples by laypersons (Study 3) converged on the hypothesis that texts produced by those with liberal ideologies would score positively in mind–body terms (reflecting a greater relative mental focus), whereas texts produced by those with conservative ideologies would score negatively in mind–body terms (reflecting a greater bodily focus), a novel linguistic signature of political ideology.
KW - body
KW - democrat
KW - language
KW - mind
KW - political ideology
KW - republican
U2 - 10.1177/0261927X16668376
DO - 10.1177/0261927X16668376
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85026853821
VL - 36
SP - 438
EP - 461
JO - Journal of Language and Social Psychology
JF - Journal of Language and Social Psychology
SN - 0261-927X
IS - 4
ER -