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The words with which you express what you feel say a lot about your health
Psychology
The vocabulary used to describe emotions is an indicator of mental and physical health and general well-being, according to a study by the University of Pittsburgh, in the United States
The way we explain how we feel to others tells more about us than we think. At least it is one of the conclusions of an analysis carried out by a team of scientists from the School of Medicine of the University of Pittsburgh (United States) and which has also recently published the journal “Nature Communications”, according to Europa Press.
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According to the study, a vocabulary of negative emotions broader, or different ways of describing similar feelings, correlates with more psychological distress and poorer physical health, while a vocabulary of Positive emotions broader correlates with better physical health and well-being.
“Our language seems to indicate our experience with the emotional states with which we feel most comfortable. There is a congruence between how many different ways we can name a feeling and how often and how likely we are to experience that feeling, ”reveals study lead author Vera Vine, a postdoctoral fellow in Pitt’s Department of Psychiatry.
To examine how the depth of the vocabulary of emotions broadly corresponds to lived experience, Vine and his team analyzed public blogs written by more than 35.000 people and stream of consciousness essays than 1.567 university students. The students also reported their moods periodically during the experiment.
This is how you speak, this is how you feel
In general, people who used a wider variety of negative emotion words tended to show linguistic markers associated with lower well-being, such as references to illness and being alone, and reported higher depression y neuroticismas well as poorer physical health.
In contrast, those who used a variety of positive emotion words tended to display linguistic markers of well-being – such as references to leisure activities, achievement, and being part of a group – and reported higher rates of awareness, extraversion, affability, general health and lower rates of depression and neuroticism.
These findings suggest that an individual’s vocabulary may correspond to emotional experiences, but does not talk about whether emotional vocabularies were helpful or harmful in generating emotional experiences.
“There is a lot of excitement right now about expanding people’s emotional vocabulary and teaching how to accurately articulate negative feelings,” notes Vine.
«Although we often hear the phrase ‘name it to tame it’ When it comes to negative emotions, I hope this article can inspire clinical researchers who are developing emotion labeling for clinical practice, to study the possible Dangers of Encouraging the Over-labeling of Negative Emotions and the potential usefulness of teaching positive words, ”he adds.
Do you often say that you are sad?
During the stream of consciousness exercise, the researchers found that students who used more names for sadness became sadder over the course of the experiment; people who used more names for fear worried more, and people who used more names for anger became more angry.
«It is likely that people who have had more disturbing life experiences have developed a richer vocabulary of negative emotions to describe the worlds around them. In everyday life, these same people can more easily label nuanced feelings as negative, which can ultimately affect their mood, ”says James W. Pennebaker, professor of psychology at the University of Texas and an author on the project. .
What benefits us
- A greater variety of words about positive emotions is evidence of higher rates of awareness, extraversion, agreeableness, general health, and lower rates of depression and neuroticism.
What hurts us
- You have to study the possible
- People who have had more disturbing life experiences have developed a richer vocabulary of negative emotions