The story of “I” tracking: Psychological implications of self‐referential language use

Abstract

AbstractWe review extant research on the psychological implications of the use of first‐person singular pronouns (i.e., “I‐talk”). A common intuition is that I‐talk is associated with an overly positive, highly agentic, and inflated view of the self—including arrogance, self‐centeredness, and grandiose narcissism. Initial (small‐sample) research provided evidence that frequent I‐talk was associated with grandiose narcissism. More recent (large‐sample) research, however, has found that the correlation is near zero. Frequent I‐talk is, however, positively correlated with depressive symptoms, in particular, and negative emotionality (i.e., neuroticism), more broadly. Frequent I‐talk is also positively related to the neurotic variety of narcissism called vulnerable narcissism. In addition, frequent I‐talk has a positive association with sociodemographic characteristics such as (lower) status, (younger) age, and (female) gender; I‐talk has a conditional association with truth‐telling and authenticity—a correlation that appears to hinge on context. This review summarizes the literature on I‐talk, provides some speculations about the emergent psychological meanings of I‐talk, and provides a guide for future research.