Language and Social Dynamics

Some of the smallest words that people use in everyday life can reveal basic social and psychological processes. A series of studies were conducted to explore how basic group processes could be revealed by people's use of pronouns, articles, prepositions, and other function words. Through the analysis of transcripts of live and virtual working groups, informal groups, close relationships, and emails, it was possible to identify the relative status of group members as well as identify effective communication patterns. In addition, the computerized text methods were developed in ways that can capture near-real-time social processes in English and other languages. Implications of the findings include the ability to characterize group dynamics by the mere measurement of the words used in groups - a form of remote sensing. In addition, the studies point to ways of automatically shaping group dynamics in education or training so that they work more effectively. Finally, the current research provides a methodology to track real world group processes as they occur.