Personality and Text: Quantitative Psycholinguistic Analysis of a Stylistically Differentiated Czech Text

Abstract

The paper focuses on the possibilities of quantitative linguistic method application in the context of psychological disciplines, especially psychodiagnostics. It presents the theoretical basis for this approach, as well as documentation and selected results of the Quantitative Psycholinguistic Analysis of the Formal Parameters of the Text (QPA-FPT) research. The research sample consisted of 76 undergraduates who wrote two types of texts according to in advance given criteria, a stylistically formal text (apology letter) and a stylistically informal text (letter from holiday). Besides, results of psychodiagnostic tests (STAI-X, KṢAT, SSI and PSSI) were collected. During data analysis, all the texts were computationally processed and described by the means of 48 linguistic characteristics (parameters of text). The outcomes of the analysis were then compared with the test results, and significant correlations were identified. The research results include a number of key findings, pointing out the influence of a given text type on its morphological structure, but also the potential links among linguistic features (i.e. text parameters) and specific personality characteristics of the writer, e.g. between the quantity of verbs, emotional skills and the overall score in the SSI test, and between incidence of punctuation and the PSSI test scale distrustful—paranoid. © 2020, National Academy of Psychology (NAOP) India.