Linguistic Markers of Psychological State through Media Interviews: John Kerry and John Edwards in 2004, Al Gore in 2000

What can we learn about presidential candidates by examining their speech in natural conversation? In the present study, the television interviews from the 2004 Democratic presidential primary campaign of John Kerry (N = 29) and John Edwards (N = 34) were examined using linguistic analyses. Results indicate that Kerry and Edwards were similar in their use of positive emotion words, but that Kerry used significantly higher rates of negative emotion words than did Edwards. Comparisons with televised interviews of Al Gore from the 2000 presidential cam- paign (N = 17) revealed striking similarities in the linguistic styles of Gore and Kerry. Gore's linguistic style overlapped considerably with that of Kerry on pro- noun usage and many cognitive domains. This study points to how linguistic anal- yses can give us a clearer picture of how political candidates think, act, and feel. In a February 9, 2004 article in the Washington Post, reporter Mark Leibovich noted that John Kerry had been criticized for using the word "I" too much. Ap- parently, his advisors felt that his use of first-person singular was a sign of being too self-involved. Kerry's advisors, who were clearly not pronoun aficionados, may have succumbed to the false stereotypic belief that the use of "I" reflects selfishness and the use of "we" reflects inclusiveness. The ways in which people use pronouns and language in general reflect their personalities and psychological states. Particularly revealing is the way individ- uals express their thoughts using function words. Function words include pro- nouns, prepositions, articles, conjunctions, and auxiliary verbs. Whereas nouns ∗Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to James W. Pennebaker, De-