Word Use During COVID-19 in Female Bloggers: Changes in Emotional Negativity, Temporal Orientation, and Insight Words

Mental well-being has been shown to be reflected by several different linguistic markers, such as emotion words, temporal orientation, and insight words. Here, we investigated the effect of the COVID-19 stressor on the word use of those suffering from psychopathology and their healthy controls in a longitudinal design. 1556 blog posts written between February and June 2019 and the same period of time in 2020 were analyzed. In both the clinical and the control group, emotional negativity (d = -0.18), a focus on the present (d = -0.31), and use of insight words (d = -0.15) increased with the appearance of the COVID-19 stressor. Focus on the past decreased in the clinical group (d = 0.32). In the clinical group, the use of insight words was associated with emotional negativity and a focus on the present during the pandemic. In the control group, the use of insight words was additionally associated with a focus on the past and the future. Overall, these findings suggest that those...Show moreMental well-being has been shown to be reflected by several different linguistic markers, such as emotion words, temporal orientation, and insight words. Here, we investigated the effect of the COVID-19 stressor on the word use of those suffering from psychopathology and their healthy controls in a longitudinal design. 1556 blog posts written between February and June 2019 and the same period of time in 2020 were analyzed. In both the clinical and the control group, emotional negativity (d = -0.18), a focus on the present (d = -0.31), and use of insight words (d = -0.15) increased with the appearance of the COVID-19 stressor. Focus on the past decreased in the clinical group (d = 0.32). In the clinical group, the use of insight words was associated with emotional negativity and a focus on the present during the pandemic. In the control group, the use of insight words was additionally associated with a focus on the past and the future. Overall, these findings suggest that those suffering from psychopathology are no more vulnerable to the pandemic’s consequences on mental health than their healthy controls, as reflected in their word use. Yet, since word use on online platforms does not seem to reflect actual well-being very accurately, and considering that our sample was relatively homogenous in terms of mental disorders presented, gender, and age, these results should be interpreted with caution. Future research should replicate our findings with more valid measures of mental well-being and in a more diverse sample.Show less

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Word Use During COVID-19 in Female Bloggers: Changes in Emotional Negativity, Temporal Orientation, and Insight Words