Emotional Language in Bipolar and Major Depressive Mood Disorders
Year: 2023
Type: other
Abstract: Bipolar and major depressive disorders are characterized by profound emotional difficulties. Despite the promise of a narrative approach as a window into understanding psychological health and emotion-relevant difficulties (e.g., Losh & Capps, 2006; Vine, Boyd, & Pennebaker, 2020), few studies have examined how people with a history of mood disorders verbally describe (i.e., provide narratives about) their own emotional life events. The present study will examine the use of emotion language (i.e., emotion word frequency and emotion word differentiation) in describing positive and negative life events among adults with a history of bipolar disorder type I (BD) in the inter-episode period, major depressive disorder (MDD) in the inter-episode period, and a non-psychiatric control group (CTL). A two-prong approach will be used to code emotion language using both well-established computer-based language software as well as trained human coders. Aim 1 will test for group differences in emotion word frequency in both narratives. Aim 2 will examine group differences in emotion word differentiation, or the degree to which the narratives were described with greater emotion word specificity (e.g., happy, sad, angry) versus less emotion word specificity (i.e., more general emotion words; e.g., pleasant/unpleasant, bad/good) in both narratives. Aim 3 will examine group differences in emotion word vocabulary, or the size of unique, non-repeating, emotion words. These aims will take into account the total word amount, general vocabulary size, and time spoken. Secondary analyses in the mood-disordered groups (i.e., BD MDD) will examine whether the emotion word variables specified in Aims 1-3 are associated with illness history and functioning.
Source: Open Science Framework
Institution: University of Colorado Boulder
Topic: Mental Health via Writing
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204886688
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