We are now beginning to think very differently about emotions and reason due, in part, to discoveries in the brain sciences. One of the most eloquent spokesmen for this new perspective is Antonio R. Damasio, a neuroscientist who has studied and written about the behaviors of people who suffer damage to the frontal lobe of the brain. The frontal lobe integrates information from primal emotional centers as well as regions associated with abstract reasoning and language. Many of the connections are so extensive that it makes no sense to make a sharp distinction between emotions and thoughts.
In his book Descartes’ Error, Damasio describes a procedure whereby people play a competitive card game. Healthy people with no brain damage are highly sensitive to rewards and punishments in making their decisions. Those with damage to their frontal lobes, however, seem to ignore the feelings they get from failure. He concludes that the emotions associated with losing help people to behave more rationally. Emotions inform thoughts.
That our feelings affect the ways we think about the world is the take-home message of this chapter. Our emotions influence our thinking, which is reflected in the ways we use function words. By extension, function words can give us a sense of how other people are thinking and feeling. They also serve as subtle public announcements alerting others to our own emotional states, our thinking patterns, and where we are paying attention.
CHAPTER 6
Lying Words
LIE DETECTION EXPERTS have always known that lying is associated with specific biological changes. What is the biology of true confessions? Early in my expressive writing career, volunteers came to the lab and were asked to describe a powerful emotional event while they were hooked up to sensors that measured their blood pressure, heart rate, breathing, muscle tension, and skin conductance (sometimes called galvanic skin response, or GSR). They were then left alone during the time they talked about a traumatic experience into a tape recorder. One student stands out in my mind. An edited version of what he said:
On December 20, at 10:35 P.M., my father would have been driving north on State Highway 27. He was going approximately sixty-five miles per hour in a 1990 Buick LeSabre when a deer jumped in front of his car. He could not stop. His car swerved and lost control which caused it to roll over three times before it would have hit a tree. According to the coroner’s report, he would have died instantly. My mother would have received a phone call at approximately 12:15 A.M., who then reported the incident to me. Although fourteen years old at the time, the death was manageable for me and its effects have been minimal …
The student’s voice on the recording was matter-of-fact and eerily distant, much like his language. Biologically, however, he evidenced signs of tremendous conflict and stress. While talking about the event, his heart rate and blood pressure levels were elevated and his facial muscles were tense. Nevertheless, on a questionnaire he completed immediately after the study, he reported that talking about the traumatic event was not at all upsetting or stressful.
THE LANGUAGE OF SELF-DECEPTION
Rarely had I seen such a clear case of self-deception. The student was fully aware of the facts of the experience but he failed to acknowledge the emotional impact of it while describing it and, I suspect, in the months and years after his father’s death occurred. His case reminded me of other studies involving expressive writing where the occasional participant would write about terrible traumas but not mention negative feelings or emotions. In fact, people who were unable to acknowledge their emotional reactions to disturbing experiences rarely benefited from expressive writing. The people who are honest with themselves when exploring their past are the ones who find the greatest value in writing.
The costs of self-deception are somewhat controversial. Much of modern religion and psychotherapy is based on the premise “To thine own self be true.” There is a bit of irony in that Shakespeare’s famous quotation was spoken by the deceptive Polonius to his deceptive son Laertes, who eventually killed the deceptive Hamlet in a deceptive way. Nevertheless, there has been a long tradition of thinking that self-awareness is associated with greater mental and physical health. It makes sense. People who know themselves should be better able to gauge their strengths and limitations in making decisions.
The alternative view is that harboring positive illusions about ourselves makes for a happier life. If Maya Angelou had truly understood the infinitesimal odds of becoming a world-famous author and poet, would she have done it? If Phil Hellmuth knew that the odds of winning the World Series of Poker were less than one in ten thousand, would he have entered? (Hellmuth has won eleven times.) And if Uncle Jake really appreciated that the odds of winning the lottery were one in several million, would he continue buying lottery tickets? (Yes. And he has never won.) From the beginning of time, humans have been compelled to try things that are unlikely to pay off. They are motivated by a self-deceptive belief in their abilities. Statistically, virtually no one becomes a world-famous poet, champion poker player, or lottery winner. Nevertheless, a small group of people succeed in these domains and their successes often fuel our illusions.
Holding positive illusions about our abilities, relationships, and the world around us can be reassuring and stress reducing. One downside is if the overconfidence we have in our abilities leads to a gross distortion of reality that produces disastrous consequences. Examples, of course, abound. In his intriguing book Deceit and Self-Deception, the evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers details catastrophic results of self-deception, from airplane crashes to ill-advised wars to worldwide depressions.
Self-deception comes in many forms. As evidenced by the student who spoke about his father’s death, people can deny or fail to appreciate the emotional impact of an event. Another form is a brash overconfidence in one’s own abilities or situations. Yet another is a firmly held belief that is either demonstrably false or not proven. Examples include the man who is convinced of his ex-girlfriend’s love even after she has married someone else and has issued a restraining order against him. At the extreme, delusions by people suffering from serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia could also be an example of this form of self-deception.
Can self-deception be captured by language? To some degree, yes it can. Look back to the student’s story about the death of his father. Three language features jump out:
• Impersonal language. Most people, when writing about a personal upheaval, take the experience, well, personally. They use phrases like “I saw” or “I felt.” Notice how the student never uses the word I.
• Lack of emotions. Despite his writing about the death of his father when he was fourteen years old, the student uses virtually no emotion words, especially negative emotion words. His only emotion-related words, in fact, are implied—the experience was manageable and minimal.
• Concrete, stiff, and oddly distant language. You can see he tends to use a high rate of concrete nouns (as measured by his use of articles—a, an, and the). He also uses a large number of verbs, especially words like would. Words such as would, could, and should introduce a type of distance between the actual event and the person’s perception of it.
SELF-DECEPTION IN LITERARY CHARACTERS
Self-deception of all forms is frequently portrayed in literature. Consider Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. At the beginning of the story, Scrooge is an emotionally cold older man who is contemptuous of the Christmas season, family, and close human connections. We first see Scrooge in his business office on Christmas Eve excoriating his clerk Bob Cratchit about his plans to not work on Christmas. When Scrooge’s nephew drops by to invite Scrooge to Christmas dinner, Scrooge replies:
What else can I be … when I live in such a world of fools as this?… What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in them through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will … eve
ry idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas” on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.
Self-deception at work? Indeed. Dickens later lets us see a younger Scrooge whose childhood was difficult but who was close to his sister and had warm ties to his first mentor in the business and especially an old girlfriend whom he lost. We see that he was actually a decent human being who now hides his emotions in his greed. During the night of Christmas Eve, a series of ghosts appear at Scrooge’s bedside. Horror and havoc ensue. And by Christmas morning, the real Scrooge emerges. As soon as he awakens, he opens his window and exclaims:
I don’t know what to do!… I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world!
He eventually runs to his nephew’s house, where dinner with Bob Cratchit’s family is about to begin:
Now, I’ll tell you what, my friend … I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore … I am about to raise your salary … A merry Christmas, Bob … A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year. I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob. Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!
Dickens nicely captures the language of self-deception and self-awareness. Scrooge uses I-words half as often in his first speeches as in his last. He is also slightly less emotional at the beginning. You can discern more distancing in the first dialogue as well. In addition to greater use of discrepancy verbs such as would and could, he deflects attention away from himself by using much higher rates of words like you at the beginning. The only anomaly is Dickens’s overuse of concrete nouns and articles in the second speech. If only he had had LIWC when this was written in 1832, he would have known that Scrooge needed to say more a’s and the’s at the beginning of the book.
SELF-DECEPTION IN EVERYDAY STATEMENTS ON THE INTERNET
The language of the student whose father died and of Scrooge points to the type of self-deception associated with the denial or avoidance of emotion. How about the self-deception of overconfidence? There are a number of simple yet fun ways to answer the question. One is to think of common phrases that we all use when we are almost too certain of something versus when we are reasonably certain. For example, the phrase “There is absolutely no doubt that …” would only be used by someone with a tremendous amount of confidence—some might say overconfidence. But the phrase, “There is a possibility that …” would likely be embraced by speakers who are more tentative.
When people start sentences with these two differents phrases, what do they actually say? With search engine queries (using something like Google, Yahoo, or Bing), it is easy to answer the question. Here are some of the statements that resulted from each of the searches.
There is absolutely no doubt that:
superficial breathing ensures a superficial experience of ourselves.
high definition television is the way to go.
all who entered the Summer Holidays Picture Framing Competition produced pieces of an exceptional standard.
blackjack is a beatable game [and] you can have an edge over the casino.
God will forgive sex before marriage. God’s love for a person is not diminished because of the mistakes that person has made.
boxer shorts rule the planet for the ultimate comfort and style. Now crushing the hat industry will be HEAD BOXER HEADWEAR!
taking a few minutes to locate the rabbit breeder hobbyists near you is well worth the time.
anyone who does hear or read this amazing story will join in the fight to save our Country and our Nation’s Youth.
It is interesting to look at each of these statements for which there is absolutely positively no doubt. Maybe it’s just me but I harbor some serious doubts about a few of them. Did everyone who entered the framing competition really produce pieces of exceptional standards? And will boxer-short headwear really destroy the hat industry?
The language of these certainty statements is also striking. Phrases starting with “There is absolutely no doubt that” included few I-words, high rates of positive emotion words, and sentences that are simple and less specific. Now compare the certainty statements with those that start with a more humble, “there is a possibility that.”
There is a possibility that:
you could be pregnant. Arrive twenty minutes prior to your appointment time to complete registration.
I will be grounded if my parents find out about their car.
your former spouse may be entitled to financial information about your spouse from your second marriage in certain circumstances.
you may receive this survey from more than one source; if so, I apologize in advance for the duplication.
Who could disagree with any of these statements? The tone for most of the statements is measured and reasonable. You will also notice that the language is less formal and more personal. For example, phrases starting with “there is a possibility that” use more personal pronouns, especially I-words. The sentences are more complex and specific. A good way to evaluate specificity is to see if there are references to time, space, and motion. Finally, the tentative phrases are actually less emotional—especially in the use of positive emotions. It is almost as if the overconfident writers make up for truth with optimism.
SELF-DECEPTION IN LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION
Most university faculty members write a large number of letters of recommendation every year. These letters are for undergraduates trying to get into a graduate or professional school and for graduate students trying to land jobs. In addition to writing letters, we also read letters of recommendation—for people applying for graduate school and jobs. Over the years, my colleagues and I have noticed that it is very difficult to distinguish among letters. They all seem to be quite positive. Is there a way to sort out the genuinely positive letters from the pro-forma positive letters?
I like to think of myself as an honest, straightforward person. When I sit down to write a letter of recommendation, it is important that what I say is truthful but also portrays the student in a positive yet fair light. One thing I’ve noticed is that as I start writing a letter I gradually start to see more and more positive things about the student. By the time I have finished, I come away with the belief that there is absolutely no doubt that the student I’m writing about is perfect. Ouch. That sounds a little like self-deception. In talking with colleagues, many report the same feelings.
Is it possible to use language analyses to tell which of my letters are real and which ones are self-deceptive? To find out, I analyzed about two hundred letters of recommendation that I had written. To begin, I went back and rated how I truly felt about the student’s potential. This rating was made often several years after writing the letters and was not tainted by the post-writing self-deceptive glow. I then simply correlated the word use in my letters with my ratings. Four reliable patterns emerged.
In my letters for the students I truly felt would do the best, I tended to:
• Say more, use longer sentences and bigger words. The better I felt they would ultimately perform, the more words I wrote. Longer letters reflect the fact that I had more to say about the student. My sentences were also more complex.
• Use fewer positive emotion words. This shocked me. The more potential I believed the student had, the less likely I was to use words like excellent, nice, good, and happy. As I went back to the original letters, the reason became clear. For people best suited for graduate school or a particular job, I tended to give specific examples of their accomplishments. For people not as suited, I tended to wave my hands a bit more and simply say they were great at what they did.
• Provide more detailed information. I noticed that in the stro
nger letters, I paid more attention to what the students had done rather than just talk about the students themselves. For the promising students, I spent a disproportionate amount of time describing their work and their contribution to whatever projects they worked on. To do this, I used more words that referenced time, space, and motion. Relatively few of my sentences used pronouns like he or she because I was focusing on the projects as opposed to the people.
• Pay little attention to the potential reader of the letter. Recall that the ways people use pronouns reveals where they are paying attention. Apparently, when writing letters for somewhat weaker students, my mind would float to the reader and away from the student. I included phrases like “as you can see from the candidate’s résumé …” or “I’m sure you will agree that …”
The language analyses indicated that my letters of recommendation said more than I thought they did. I suspect that I’m similar to most earnest letter writers who are not intentionally lying to try to place a student. There is little doubt, however, that some self-deception is at work. The findings point to how I subtly and unconsciously engineer a letter to make a student appear stronger than he or she might be. Do other letter writers employ the same techniques as part of their own self-deceptions? No studies have been conducted on the topic yet. My sense is that there are wide variations in the ways self-deception is expressed. Nevertheless, there appear to be common language markers across the different types of self-deception.
The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us Page 14