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A study looking at the language people use when going through breakups found that markers of an impending breakup can be seen three months before the breakup.
Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin reviewed 1,027,541 posts from 6,803 Reddit users. The users were specifically chosen because they had posted on the r / BreakUps subreddit. No, before you knew it, the indication of an imminent breakup wasn’t that they were posting on this particular forum – but the fact that they had posted there as well as many other areas of Reddit has gave researchers the opportunity to see how their breakup affected their use of language.
The team, which published its findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reviewed the publications before, during and after the two-year terminations. They found that linguistic markers indicating a break started 3 months in advance and that users did not return to their baseline until (on average) about 6 months after the event.
“The signs included an increase in I-words, us-words, and cognitive processing words (characteristics of depression, collective focus, and the process of meaning-making, respectively),” the team wrote in ‘study, “and declines in analytical thinking (indicating more personal and informal language).”
For example, in the study example below, words in bold show signs of cognitive processing, as well as an abundance of “I-words”.
“I follow undecided whether or not to share my story. I need some Help me because I feel lost But my story is long and I do not know if it’s worth sharing. ”
These subtle changes in the use of pronouns and other changes in the language were seen not only when users talked about their relationships, but when they spoke entirely of other topics.
“It seems that even before people know a breakup is going to happen, it starts to affect their lives,” a psychology doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin and lead author Sarah told Science Daily. Seraj. “We don’t really notice how many times we use prepositions, articles, or pronouns, but those functional words are altered in a way when you go through a personal upheaval that can tell us a lot about our emotional and psychological state. “
The language changes observed peaked during the week of the break-up and generally returned to normal 6 months after the relationship ended. However, those who posted about their breakup for longer periods of time, returning to r / BreakUps to talk about their breakup story, were found to be “less well adjusted a year after their breakup than the short-term posters,” continuing to use language different from their usual basis.
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