Abstract
The word choices people make for expressing ideas and interests can reveal important social and psychological characteristics, and text analysis allows researchers to reliably and quickly assess features of the words people use. In a previous study, we found significant differences in the linguistic styles that Democrat and Republican presidents used to express themselves and their concerns in their speeches, and also that those have changed over time (McGovern, 2022). In this exploratory study, we investigate which U.S. presidents over the last sixty years display the most and least authenticity in their formal speeches, and whether there are other significant differences in linguistic styles among those presidents. Based on text analysis, our findings show that both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were statistically significant outliers, and that Nixon’s speeches measured the highest and Clinton’s the lowest in markers of authenticity in their presidential speeches overall. Analyses of specific speeches also shed additional light on the specific topics that each president displayed the most and least authenticity. The present study also investigated the levels of confidence indicated by their speeches for each president. Clinton displayed a consistently high level of confidence in his speeches with a few notable exceptions, whereas Nixon’s confidence was consistently lower and also seemed to decline over time, again with some notable exceptions. The implications of these findings and limitations of the present study are explored.
Presenters
Arthur McGovernProfessor of Psychology, Social Sciences, Nichols College, Massachusetts, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Text Analysis, Political Speech, Psycholinguistics
