James Pennebaker

James Whiting Pennebaker (born March 2, 1950) is an American social psychologist. He is the Centennial Liberal Arts Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers.James W. Pennebaker Background Information
, Department of Psychology, University of Texas. His research focuses on the relationship between natural language use, health, and social behavior, most recently "how everyday language reflects basic social and personality processes".

Education and career

Pennebaker received his B.A. in psychology from Eckerd College in 1972 with honors and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1977.

He has held the following positions:
*1977–1983: Assistant Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Virginia
*1983–1997: Associate and Full Professor, Southern Methodist University; 1995–1997: Chair of Psychology Department
*1997–present: Professor, University of Texas at Austin; 2005–2009: Bush Regents Professor of Liberal Arts, 2005–2014: Chair of Psychology Department,
*2009–present: Regents Centennial Professor of Liberal Arts
*2005–2010: International Research Professor, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, England
*2016–2018: Executive Director, Project 2021 to rethink undergraduate education University of Texas at Austin.

Research

Over the course of his career, Pennebaker has studied the nature of physical symptoms, health consequences of secrets, expressive writing, and natural language, and has received grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Templeton Foundation, the U.S. Army Research Institute, and other federal agencies for studies in language, emotion, and social dynamics.

A pioneer of writing therapy, he has researched the link between language and recovering from trauma and been "recognized by the American Psychological Association as one of the top researchers on trauma, disclosure, and health."Jessica Wapner
"He Counts Your Words (Even Those Pronouns)"
Biography, ''New York Times'' October 13, 2008. In particular, he finds a person's use of "low-level words", such as pronouns and articles, predictive of recovery as well as indicative of sex, age, and personality traits: "Virtually no one in psychology has realized that low-level words can give clues to large-scale behaviors."Jan Dönges
"What Your Choice of Words Says about Your Personality: A language analysis program reveals personality, mental health and intent by counting and categorizing words"
''Scientific American Mind, July 2009 (originally titled "You Are What You Say."

In the mid-1990s, he and colleagues developed the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC; pronounced "Luke"), a computerized text analysis program that outputs the percentage of words in a given text that fall into one or more of over 80 linguistic (e.g., first-person singular pronouns, conjunctions), psychological (e.g., anger, achievement), and topical (e.g., leisure, money) categories. It builds on previous research establishing strong links between linguistic patterns and personality or psychological state, but makes possible far more detailed results than did hand counts. Pennebaker and associates have used this tool to analyze the language of Al Qaeda leaders and of political candidates, particularly in the 2008 United States presidential election. The use of LIWC is widespread. It is commonly used to examine how different groups of people communicate or write, how individuals may differ in their writing across contexts, and is used to detect deception. Pennebaker blogs with associates on what linguistic analysis says about political leaders, at Wordwatchers: Tracking the language of public figures, and Pennebaker Conglomerates, Inc. offers free LIWC-based text analysis tools online, including a language style matching calculator and a language-based application of the Thematic Apperception Test.

In January 2017, Pennebaker was one of the speakers in the Linguistic Society of America's inaugural Public Lectures on Language series.LSA Public Lectures on Language Series: http://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/lsa-public-lectures-language-series

Selected publications

Books

* ''The Psychology of Physical Symptoms''. New York: Springer, 1982.
* (Ed., with Daniel M. Wegner) ''Handbook of Mental Control''. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1993.
* ''Emotion, Disclosure, and Health''. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1995.
* ''Opening up: The Healing Power of Confiding in Others''. New York: Morrow, 1990. Repr. ''Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions''. New York: Guilford, 1997.
* ''Writing to Heal: A Guided Journal for Recovering from Trauma and Emotional Upheaval''. Oakland, California: New Harbinger, 2004.
* ''The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us''. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011.

Articles

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See also

*Self-concealment
*Self-disclosure

References

External links

James W. Pennebaker homepage
Department of Psychology, University of Texas

Wordwatchers: Tracking the language of public figures

In Synch: Language Style Matching
James Pennebaker Conglomerates at Online Research Consortium

Works by and about James W. Pennebaker
at OCLC WorldCat

Reprints of articles by James W. Pennebaker
at Department of Psychology, University of Texas

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pennebaker, James W.
1950 births
Living people
21st-century American psychologists
People from Midland, Texas
University of Texas at Austin faculty
Psychology educators
Eckerd College alumni
20th-century American psychologists