Wifey just got a new hair cut what do you guys think? I love it, Ashton Kutcher tweeted in 2009, along with a photo of a mo-hawked Demi Moore, circa G.I. Jane.
I have the buzzer ready baby, she responded.
Im just playing baby but I think youd look great with that cut.
Thank you love. How bout I shave your initials into my head.
If youre analyzing the couples relationship by their tweets (and many people are these days) dont look at the subject matter. Look at the pronouns.
James W. Pennebaker, a psychology professor at the University of Austin at Texas, has developed a method for measuring the compatibility of a couple based on words like I, you, me, & about 180 others.
He calls them function words - those small, often ignored pronouns (she, he, I), prepositions, (with, but) & articles (a, the)-that he believes are something of a window to the soul.
The way two people use function words with each other is a reflection of the patterns going on their mind, explains Pennebaker, who penned a book on the subject called, The Secret Life of Pronouns. Its a subconscious way of seeing if two people are on the same page.
While context, geographical & cultural backgrounds play a role in the way people carry on a conversation, what Pennebakers really looking out for is whether two people are adapting each others speech patterns. The more they mimic each other in the way they use words, the more sympatico they are.
In a series of studies, he found that when two people match function words in a conversation with each other-be it on email, Facebook, Twitter, or face to face- they are subconsciously connecting on a deeper level.
Its a sign theyre connecting, theyre thinking alike, he says.
In one study of a group of speed daters, Pennebaker found that those who used function words in a similar manner were three times as likely to pick each other for a date. Comparing language in writing is just as revealing. In looking at the letters of married poets Sylva Plath & Ted Hughes, Pennebaker found their language patterns matched up less & less as their marriage dissolved.
But its not just about love. Word match-ups are also a sign that two people fight well together. Based on Pennebakers analysis of Rosie ODonnell & Elizabeth Hasselbacks arguments on The View they match pound for pound on speech patterns, though not at all on beliefs.
Its more telling about whether the two people are paying attention to one another, & how engaged they are with one another, explains Pennebaker. If two people are really connected theyre having the same conversation.
Want to use his theory on your own relationships? Take a look at a recent email exchange . Do you start sentences the same way? Do you both use a lot of prepositions in your explanations?
If interpreting your romantic email exchanges grammatically feels a little too hyper-analytical (re: not cool) let Pennebaker do it for you. On his website, secretlifeofpronouns.com, you can actually copy & paste an email, Twitter or IM exchange & have it automatically analyzed for compatibility.
For my own experiment, I entered the Twitter exchange at the top of this post into Pennebakers grammar calculator. The results: Demi & Ashton are not very compatible. Their haircut banter scored a .59 on a scale of .100. Thats far below average, according to the site, which gives an average score of .84 for most online exchanges.
To be fair, my language sample was small (it works better if you enter at least a couple hundred words for each person) & the way people write on Twitter isnt exactly a good measure of how they write or speak anywhere else.
But lets take their low score at face value. Back in 2009, when this Twitter exchange transpired, their language wasnt overlapping, & by Pennebakers logic, that means they werent thinking alike, which really means they werent paying attention to each other. Most relationship experts would recommend a little affection as an antidote, a reminder of those three littler words, I love you. But if you ask Pennebaker, all that really matters is the I & You.
10:13 AM
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