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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday November 26 2016, @01:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the beat-it-dog-breath dept.

Although recent election coverage may suggest otherwise, research shows that people are more likely to use positive words than negative words on the whole in their communications. Behavioral scientists have extensively documented this phenomenon, known as language positivity bias (LPB), in a number of different languages. However, a new study conducted by researchers at USC Dornsife and the University of Michigan, suggests that our tendency to use positive language has been on the decline in the United States over the past 200 years.

While LPB is well-established, there has been little consensus on what mechanisms are responsible for the effect. Previous studies, which looked at language as static, have proposed that LPB is due to subjective moods, objective circumstances or social influences.

But in a study published on Nov. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers took a new approach to measuring LPB by looking at the fluctuation of the ratio of positive words to negative words used over time in American English.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 26 2016, @04:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 26 2016, @04:02PM (#433262)

    April 10 – The Second Bank of the United States obtains its charter.

    April 11 – In Philadelphia, the African Methodist Episcopal Church is established by Richard Allen and other African-American Methodists, the first such denomination completely independent of White churches.

    June 19 – Battle of Seven Oaks: The Hudson's Bay Company is defeated by the North West Company, near Winnipeg, Canada.

    July – Lord Byron, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Polidori, gathered at the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva in a rainy Switzerland, tell each other tales. This gives rise to two classic Gothic narratives, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Polidori's The Vampyre.

    August 27 – Bombardment of Algiers: Various European Allies ships force Omar Agha, Dey of Algiers to free Christian slaves.

    November 6 – James Monroe defeats Rufus King in the United States presidential election.

    December 11 – Indiana is admitted as the 19th U.S. state.

    Date Unknown - Shaka starts to rule the Zulu Kingdom at about this date.