Validity of LIWC in measuring personality expression via spoken language

Past research on personality using the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) shows that in written language contexts, extroverts use more words from the positive emotion and social process categories. However, when applying LIWC to spoken language contexts, there were mixed or insignificant results....

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Main Authors: Goh, Bei Jun, Chen, Jiayu
Other Authors: Lin Qiu
Format: Student Research Paper
Language:English
Published: Nanyang Technological University 2023
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165905
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1659052023-04-17T15:39:06Z Validity of LIWC in measuring personality expression via spoken language Goh, Bei Jun Chen, Jiayu Lin Qiu School of Social Sciences Jerlyn Lam linqiu@ntu.edu.sg Social sciences::Psychology Past research on personality using the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) shows that in written language contexts, extroverts use more words from the positive emotion and social process categories. However, when applying LIWC to spoken language contexts, there were mixed or insignificant results. This suggests that the two LIWC categories may not be as valid in capturing extraversion in spoken language contexts. We propose that the weakened findings could be attributed to participants’ usage of voice cues as alternative channels for expressing extraversion i.e. mean pitch, pitch variability, mean intensity, intensity variability and formant frequency. We conducted two studies with two speaking tasks each, a confederate was added to the second study to prompt the expression of extraversion. Our results found self-reported extraversion to be insignificant with LIWC’s positive emotion and social process word use, mean pitch, pitch variability and formant frequency in both studies. Variability of intensity was significant with extraversion in study one while mean intensity found significance in study two. LIWC’s word count variable found positive significance in both studies. Interestingly, when independent judges coded for positive and sociable states, a significant positive correlation with participants’ extraversion was found in both transcripts and audio recordings for both studies. We conclude that while traditional methods using human judgement of personality might still be necessary, LIWC and machine audio softwares can be supplementary tools that provide quick and cost-efficient analyses. We also highlight the importance of establishing language-based measures of personality in spoken language. 2023-04-16T03:39:58Z 2023-04-16T03:39:58Z 2021 Student Research Paper Goh, B. J. & Chen, J. (2021). Validity of LIWC in measuring personality expression via spoken language. Student Research Paper, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165905 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165905 en © 2021 The Author(s). application/pdf Nanyang Technological University
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Social sciences::Psychology
spellingShingle Social sciences::Psychology
Goh, Bei Jun
Chen, Jiayu
Validity of LIWC in measuring personality expression via spoken language
description Past research on personality using the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) shows that in written language contexts, extroverts use more words from the positive emotion and social process categories. However, when applying LIWC to spoken language contexts, there were mixed or insignificant results. This suggests that the two LIWC categories may not be as valid in capturing extraversion in spoken language contexts. We propose that the weakened findings could be attributed to participants’ usage of voice cues as alternative channels for expressing extraversion i.e. mean pitch, pitch variability, mean intensity, intensity variability and formant frequency. We conducted two studies with two speaking tasks each, a confederate was added to the second study to prompt the expression of extraversion. Our results found self-reported extraversion to be insignificant with LIWC’s positive emotion and social process word use, mean pitch, pitch variability and formant frequency in both studies. Variability of intensity was significant with extraversion in study one while mean intensity found significance in study two. LIWC’s word count variable found positive significance in both studies. Interestingly, when independent judges coded for positive and sociable states, a significant positive correlation with participants’ extraversion was found in both transcripts and audio recordings for both studies. We conclude that while traditional methods using human judgement of personality might still be necessary, LIWC and machine audio softwares can be supplementary tools that provide quick and cost-efficient analyses. We also highlight the importance of establishing language-based measures of personality in spoken language.
author2 Lin Qiu
author_facet Lin Qiu
Goh, Bei Jun
Chen, Jiayu
format Student Research Paper
author Goh, Bei Jun
Chen, Jiayu
author_sort Goh, Bei Jun
title Validity of LIWC in measuring personality expression via spoken language
title_short Validity of LIWC in measuring personality expression via spoken language
title_full Validity of LIWC in measuring personality expression via spoken language
title_fullStr Validity of LIWC in measuring personality expression via spoken language
title_full_unstemmed Validity of LIWC in measuring personality expression via spoken language
title_sort validity of liwc in measuring personality expression via spoken language
publisher Nanyang Technological University
publishDate 2023
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165905
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