TY - JOUR
T1 - Historical language records reveal a surge of cognitive distortions in recent decades
AU - Bollen, Johan
AU - ten Thij, Marijn
AU - Breithaupt, Fritz
AU - Barron, Alexander T. J.
AU - Rutter, Lauren A.
AU - Lorenzo-Luaces, Lorenzo
AU - Scheffer, Marten
N1 - Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. J.B. is grateful for support from the Urban Mental Health Institute of the University of Amsterdam, Wageningen University and Research, the NSF (NSF Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences [SBE] 1636636), and the support of the Indiana University Vice Provost for COVID-19 Research. We thank Jonathan Haidt of New York University who provided the inspiration for this investigation by speculating on a recent societal shift toward a style of thinking that may be associated with internalizing disorders.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/7/27
Y1 - 2021/7/27
N2 - Individuals with depression are prone to maladaptive patterns of thinking, known as cognitive distortions, whereby they think about themselves, the world, and the future in overly negative and inaccurate ways. These distortions are associated with marked changes in an individual's mood, behavior, and language. We hypothesize that societies can undergo similar changes in their collective psychology that are reflected in historical records of language use. Here, we investigate the prevalence of textual markers of cognitive distortions in over 14 million books for the past 125 y and observe a surge of their prevalence since the 1980s, to levels exceeding those of the Great Depression and both World Wars. This pattern does not seem to be driven by changes in word meaning, publishing and writing standards, or the Google Books sample. Our results suggest a recent societal shift toward language associated with cognitive distortions and internalizing disorders.
AB - Individuals with depression are prone to maladaptive patterns of thinking, known as cognitive distortions, whereby they think about themselves, the world, and the future in overly negative and inaccurate ways. These distortions are associated with marked changes in an individual's mood, behavior, and language. We hypothesize that societies can undergo similar changes in their collective psychology that are reflected in historical records of language use. Here, we investigate the prevalence of textual markers of cognitive distortions in over 14 million books for the past 125 y and observe a surge of their prevalence since the 1980s, to levels exceeding those of the Great Depression and both World Wars. This pattern does not seem to be driven by changes in word meaning, publishing and writing standards, or the Google Books sample. Our results suggest a recent societal shift toward language associated with cognitive distortions and internalizing disorders.
KW - cognitive distortions
KW - internalizing disorders
KW - historical language analysis
KW - DEPRESSION
KW - THINKING
KW - CULTURE
KW - HEALTH
U2 - 10.1073/pnas.2102061118
DO - 10.1073/pnas.2102061118
M3 - Article
C2 - 34301899
SN - 0027-8424
VL - 118
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
IS - 30
M1 - 2102061118
ER -