Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
12-2013
Abstract
Two studies evaluated the correspondence between self-reported well-being and codings of emotion and life content by the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC; Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis, 2011). Open-ended diary responses were collected from 206 participants daily for 3 weeks (Study 1) and from 139 participants twice a week for 8 weeks (Study 2). LIWC negative emotion consistently correlated with self-reported negative emotion. LIWC positive emotion correlated with self-reported positive emotion in Study 1 but not in Study 2. No correlations were observed with global life satisfaction. Using a co-occurrence coding method to combine LIWC emotion codings with life-content codings, we estimated the frequency of positive and negative events in 6 life domains (family, friends, academics, health, leisure, and money). Domain-specific event frequencies predicted self-reported satisfaction in all domains in Study 1 but not consistently in Study 2. We suggest that the correspondence between LIWC codings and self-reported well-being is affected by the number of writing samples collected per day as well as the target period (e.g., past day vs. past week) assessed by the self-report measure. Extensions and possible implications for the analyses of similar types of open-ended data (e.g., social media messages) are discussed.
Keywords
well-being, emotion, satisfaction, content analysis, linguistic analysis
Discipline
Social Psychology
Research Areas
Psychology
Publication
Psychological Assessment
Volume
25
Issue
4
First Page
1069
Last Page
1078
ISSN
1040-3590
Identifier
10.1037/a0033007
Publisher
American Psychological Association
Citation
TOV, William, NG, Kok Leong, LIN, Han, & QIU, Lin.(2013). Detecting well-being via computerized content analysis of brief diary entries. Psychological Assessment, 25(4), 1069-1078.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1499
Copyright Owner and License
Publisher
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033007