Los mensajes de texto y las parejas

Las palabras que escribes en un mensaje de texto dicen más de lo que parece a simple vista.

La última edición del journal Personal Relationships contiene un artículo sobre un estudio en el que se analizaron las palabras en los mensajes de texto que se intercambian las parejas para inferir si éstas tienen una buena o mala relación.

Aquí el abstract:

Recent studies have identified robust associations between the types of words that people use and their psychological health. This study investigated whether couples' word use in their daily instant messages (IMs) is linked to the quality and stability of their relationships. Sixty-eight dating couples in the United States submitted 10 days of IM conversations with each other, which were analyzed with a linguistic word count program. Six months later, couples indicated whether they were still dating. Pronoun use and emotion word use both were associated with relationship satisfaction and stability. These findings extend previous research showing that the frequencies of certain words that people use are associated with the quality of their social relationships.

LiveScience.com resalta en su blog (ver aquí) algunas consideraciones metodológicas asi como algunas conclusiones:

... (The researchers) analyzed 10 days of instant-message conversations from nearly 70 U.S. couples who had been dating for about one and a half years and had an average age of 19. The couples also answered questions about relationship satisfaction. Six months later, the couples indicated whether they were still dating. After six months, about 60 percent of couples were still dating while the others had broken up.

The researchers read through the conversations, noting the context of the IM threads. Then, they used a linguistic word count program to analyze the conversations' pronouns and words with emotional content.

Among pronouns in IMs, couples used "I" nearly 20 times more frequently than "we." And of the emotion words, all couples were most likely to use positive words...

... The more frequently women use the pronoun "I" in their instant messages (IM), the more satisfied they are with their partners, a new study finds...

... The guys also reported higher satisfaction in couples where the gal used "I"
a lot in IMs...

El articulo lo publican tres académicos de los Departamentos de Psicología de la Universidad de California, Washington University y la Universidad de Texas.

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