The “I”s have it: Sex and Social Status Differences on Twitter.
Our findings showed patterns typically seen in natural speech. Specifically, women used the self-referent focus “I” significantly more often than men did, and lower status people used “I” significantly more often than those with higher status. Men of low social status used significantly more “I” language than did women with lower social status, but women and men of higher social status used “I” equally. Our findings suggest that social status may alter sex-linked communication, with the use of an informal and friendly style that includes self-referencing by men of lower social status, perhaps in an effort to engage more people and enhance their own status through more self-referencing.
The LIWC analyzes text and classifies word use according to different parts and types of speech, using a built-in dictionary of approximately 6000 words. The ability of the LIWC program to accurately identify psychological states of language users through their language has been validated in several ways, using many types of writing samples in multiple contexts. The LIWC program categorizes different aspects of word use that tap social processes, affect, cognitive mechanisms, and linguistic dimensions, such as pronouns. It is these linguistic “function” words that actually say more about a speaker’s emotional state, cognitive sophistication, and demographic background than do content words.
One possible explanation for high status Twitter users writing “I” less often is that its use may be a function of more formal, complete language expressions, and a lack of comfort with the medium, despite the social popularity of the Twitter user. Twitter users with a higher social status may have used their following as a platform to Tweet about various causes, thus removing themselves from their Tweets.
Soc Behav Res Pract Open J. 2016; 1(1): 17-21. doi: 10.17140/SBRPOJ-1-104
