Pollyanna Hypothesis Research Articles

Does Pollyanna hypothesis hold true in death narratives? A sentiment analysis approach

Pollyanna hypothesis claims that human beings have a universal tendency to use positive words more frequently and broadly than negative words. The present study aims to test Pollyanna hypothesis in medical death narratives at both lexical and text levels by using sentiment analysis and emotion detection methods, and to qualitatively analyze the contextual use of emotion words to deepen the understanding of doctors' emotions. Sentiment analysis showed a strong token-based linguistic positivity and a weak type-based negativity bias at the lexical level, and a general positivity bias at the text level, despite the gender of the doctors. Emotion detection discovered three prominent emotions of “joy”, “sadness”, and “anger”, and a greater diversity of negative emotions in contrast to positive emotions in medical death narratives. Contextual analysis revealed that emotion words associated with joy were primarily observed in contexts related to doctors' actions and behaviors aiming to benefit others and promote social wellbeing. Emotion words associated with sadness and anger were chiefly employed to describe situations involving patients' death and doctors' attitudes towards death. The results confirm Pollyanna hypothesis at both token-based lexical level and text level and falsify the hypothesis at type-based lexical level. Possible explanations are explored by contextual analysis, and theoretical analysis from the perspectives of cognitive linguistics and social psychology. The findings are expected to enrich the understanding of Pollyanna hypothesis as well as the junior doctors' emotional responses to clinical deaths.

Indonesian basic olfactory terms: more negative types but more positive tokens

Abstract The present study investigates the semantics of a dozen basic smell terms in Indonesian using data from a large corpus of written register. Examining how these smell terms lexicalize some odors but not others raises questions that are central to our understanding of the language of olfaction. How are smell terms structured? What does the structure of smell terms tell us about human behavior? By applying cluster analysis, the present study reveals that the Indonesian odor lexicon is structured based on one dimension correlating with pleasantness. The large dataset of a written corpus enables the present study to reveal the differences in lexicalization and frequency: Indonesian smell terms have more negative types but more positive tokens in texts. This novel approach to investigating smell terms allows us to take a step closer toward our goal of understanding olfactory vocabulary, as data on token frequency are difficult to obtain in studies of (unwritten) minority languages. This key finding supports the Pollyanna Hypothesis: people tend to use positive words more often than negative words, but the negative words convey more information.

Investigation on Productivity of Synonym Words with Different Semantic Prosody in English

“Semantic prosody” has been researched since the first claim of Sinclair in (1987). Since then, semantic prosody became one of the most important issues in language studies as a linguistic phenomenon. In 1993, Louw defined semantic prosody as a special tendency of words, which might be in a pleasant environment that creates a ‘positive semantic prosody’ or in an unpleasant environment that creates a ‘negative semantic prosody’. The current research is based on a corpus analysis design, in “COCA” and “COHA”. Two synonym pair words of “Start/Begin” and “Guide/Lead to” were chosen as a case study. Representative number of each word was estimated by “Cochran’s formula”. This study is concentrated on investigation of the fact that while negative semantic prosodies are much more frequent than words with positive semantic prosody, but based on the linguistic positivity bias and “The Pollyanna hypothesis” which is introduced by Boucher and Osgood (1969), in English, the productivity of words with positive semantic prosody in synonym pairs, is more than productivity of negative semantic productivity. This fact might be due to the social interactions, the emotional content of words and linguistic behavior. It is notable to say that people tend to talk more about the brighter side than the darker side of life. This discrepancy makes words’ choosing somehow problematic for translators and English learners.

Sentiment Analysis of Children and Youth Literature: Is There a Pollyanna Effect?

If the words of natural human language possess a universal positivity bias, as assumed by Boucher and Osgood’s (1969) famous Pollyanna hypothesis and computationally confirmed for large text corpora in several languages (Dodds et al., 2015), then children and youth literature (CYL) should also show a Pollyanna effect. Here we tested this prediction applying an unsupervised vector space model-based sentiment analysis tool called SentiArt (Jacobs, 2019) to two CYL corpora, one in English (372 books) and one in German (500 books). Pitching our analysis at the sentence level, and assessing semantic as well as lexico-grammatical information, both corpora show the Pollyanna effect and thus add further evidence to the universality hypothesis. The results of our multivariate sentiment analyses provide interesting testable predictions for future scientific studies of literature.

Do happy people care about society’s problems?

ABSTRACT Since ancient times, scholars, individuals, and societies have been preoccupied with the pursuit of happiness. But might individual happiness actually be bad for society and the world? A common concern – which we refer to as the Pollyanna hypothesis – is that happy people might be too happy to care enough about important current issues, thus being less likely to act on improving society and the world. In three studies, however, we found that feeling good predicted more, not less, action on current issues. We saw this pattern in the context of the 2017 far right rallies in Charlottesville, VA (Study 1), a wide range of social, political, and environmental issues chosen by participants (Study 2), and environmental action within a nationally representative sample (Study 3). These correlational findings speak against the Pollyanna hypothesis: Happiness does not seem to preclude caring about local and global issues.

The use and trend of emotional language in the banks’ annual reports: the state of the global financial crisis

This study is of an exploratory nature as it seeks to explore the extent to which the language of emotions in the banks’ annual reports is affected by the global financial crisis (GFC). The language of emotions was analyzed using eight categories (trust, anticipation, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise and joy) in annual reports of 12 listed banks from six countries in the Middle East area (namely, Jordan, Kingdom of Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Sultanate of Oman, Kuwait, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) from 2002 to 2017. The final data set consists of 192 bank-year observations. The study time was divided into three periods (pre, during and post GFC). In addition, the study enriches accounting literature by being the first study to test Pollyanna hypothesis using emotion analysis. The results of the study show that the percentage of emotional words in banks’ annual reports (2002–2017) represents almost 22% on average. The trust, anticipation and fear categories were the most affected than other emotional categories during GFC. While the trust category decreased, both the fear and anticipation categories increased. Other findings of the study show that regardless of GFC, emotional words of trust and anticipation categories in banks’ annual reports have dominated the emotional words of the disgust and surprise categories. Therefore, Pollyanna hypothesis is supported. In contrast to the emotional words of the joy category in banks’ annual reports which has not dominated the sadness category. In this case, Pollyanna hypothesis is rejected.

Exploring the Measurement of Markedness and Its Relationship with Other Linguistic Variables.

Antonym pair members can be differentiated by each word’s markedness–that distinction attributable to the presence or absence of features at morphological or semantic levels. Morphologically marked words incorporate their unmarked counterpart with additional morphs (e.g., “unlucky” vs. “lucky”); properties used to determine semantically marked words (e.g., “short” vs. “long”) are less clearly defined. Despite extensive theoretical scrutiny, the lexical properties of markedness have received scant empirical study. The current paper employs an antonym sequencing approach to measure markedness: establishing markedness probabilities for individual words and evaluating their relationship with other lexical properties (e.g., length, frequency, valence). Regression analyses reveal that markedness probability is, as predicted, related to affixation and also strongly related to valence. Our results support the suggestion that antonym sequence is reflected in discourse, and further analysis demonstrates that markedness probabilities, derived from the antonym sequencing task, reflect the ordering of antonyms within natural language. In line with the Pollyanna Hypothesis, we argue that markedness is closely related to valence; language users demonstrate a tendency to present words evaluated positively ahead of those evaluated negatively if given the choice. Future research should consider the relationship of markedness and valence, and the influence of contextual information in determining which member of an antonym pair is marked or unmarked within discourse.

Affective biases in English are bi-dimensional

A long-standing observation about the interface between emotion and language is that positive words are used more frequently than negative ones, leading to the Pollyanna hypothesis which alleges a predominantly optimistic outlook in humans. This paper uses the largest available collection of affective ratings as well as insights from linguistics to revisit the Pollyanna hypothesis as it relates to two dimensions of emotion: valence (pleasantness) and arousal (intensity). We identified systematic patterns in the distribution of words over a bi-dimensional affective space, which (1) run counter to and supersede most prior accounts, and (2) differ drastically between word types (unique, distinct words in the lexicon) and word tokens (number of occurrences of available words in the lexicon). We argue for two factors that shape affect in language and society: a pro-social benevolent communication strategy with its emphasis on useful and dangerous phenomena, and the structure of human subjective perception of affect.

Positive words carry less information than negative words

We show that the frequency of word use is not only determined by the word length \cite{Zipf1935} and the average information content \cite{Piantadosi2011}, but also by its emotional content. We have analyzed three established lexica of affective word usage in English, German, and Spanish, to verify that these lexica have a neutral, unbiased, emotional content. Taking into account the frequency of word usage, we find that words with a positive emotional content are more frequently used. This lends support to Pollyanna hypothesis \cite{Boucher1969} that there should be a positive bias in human expression. We also find that negative words contain more information than positive words, as the informativeness of a word increases uniformly with its valence decrease. Our findings support earlier conjectures about (i) the relation between word frequency and information content, and (ii) the impact of positive emotions on communication and social links.

The Pollyanna Principle in French: A study of variable lexis

This article investigates the different rates at which young speakers of French appear to innovate in the use of adjectives of approval and disapproval. The principal research issues examined here are twofold: (i) the validity of the ‘Pollyanna Principle’, a concept in linguistic pragmatics adapted from the ‘Pollyanna Hypothesis’ of psychology, and designed to account for the preference on the part of speakers for avoiding or mitigating negative terms and expressions. This hypothesis is lent support by evidence adduced by Opie and Opie (1959), that negative terms used by children and adolescents tend to be stable, in contrast to the more rapid turnover of terms of approval. (ii) Against this however, more recent sociolinguistic research in French suggests that variation in the lexis of French has a good deal of socio-stylistic value compared to the pronunciation level, and perhaps also the grammar. If true, this implies that French speakers coin lexical items (both negative and positive) more frequently than speakers of English (the language upon which the Opies based their suggestion). The aim of this article is therefore to examine the cross-linguistic validity of the Pollyanna principle, by analysing reported rates of lexical innovation in French.

The Pollyanna hypothesis in adult aphasia

Abstract The Pollyanna hypothesis (Boucher and Osgood 1969) states that evaluatively positive (E+) words are used more often, in more different situations, and with greater ease than evaluatively negative (E–) words. The present study sought to determine the existence of the Pollyanna hypothesis in the spontaneous speech of institutionalized aphasic subjects. Effects of context and grammatical class were examined. Despite the high incidence of depression affecting aphasic adults, the Pollyanna hypothesis was supported in this study. The data suggest that evaluative notions of normality may not be disrupted by the presence of aphasia.

Whatever Happened to Pollyanna?

The Polyanna Principle (Matlin & Stang, 1978) predicts that trait inferences will be made more rapidly for evaluatively positive targets and/or traits than for evaluatively negative targets and/or traits. In contrast, the congruence principle proposed here predicts that evaluatively congruent inferences (favorable inferences for positive targets and unfavorable inferences for negative targets) will be made more rapidly than evaluatively incongruent inferences (unfavorable inferences for positive targets and favorable inferences for negative targets) regardless of the positive or negative nature of either target or trait. Decision times were compared for evaluatively positive and negative trait inferences for liked (L+) and disliked (L-) real targets. The results indicated that both the Pollyanna and the congruence principles were operating. Although decisions were made more rapidly for L+ than L-targets, supporting the Pollyanna hypothesis, congruent decisions were made more rapidly than incongruent decisions even when incongruent decisions involved L+ targets and congruent decisions involved L-targets. The most rapid decisions were made when the two principles were operating in the same direction (ie., congruent decisions for L+ targets).

The Pollyanna Hypothesis in Business Writing: Initial Results, Suggestions for Research

This paper looks at three hypotheses: that regardless of the financially good or bad years of a corporation, the communication in the annual let ters to the stockholders will be predominantly positive; that negative words are less frequent in a financially good year than a bad year; and that German readers also tend to accept the same preferred, positive words as Americans. All hypotheses were sustained after viewing 12 annual letters to stockholders in 1975 and 12 letters in 1977.The Pollyanna Hypothesis provides a fertile area for further research: into business letters, business speeches, or other areas which fall into the genre of written or oral business communication.

Social Judgments of the Urban and Vietnam Issues in 1968 and 1972

The authors examine data from 1968 and 1972 for possible systematic displacement effects in judgments made of candidates' positions on the issues of urban unrest and Vietnam. There was a pervasive tendency to overestimate the similarity of one's own views and those of the preferred candidate. This occurred to a greater extent for Nixon voters in 1968 and 1972 and Humphrey voters in 1968 than for McGovern voters in 1972 and Wallace voters in 1968. The tendency to overestimate the difference between one's views and those of nonpreferred candidates was much less reliable. From detailed analyses using own position, vote, race, importance, party, and others as control variables, six propositions emerge. Findings are related to balance theory and the Pollyanna hypothesis, and implications are briefly discussed.

THE GOLDEN SECTION HYPOTHESIS

The golden section is a proportion the aesthetic properties of which have been extolled since antiquity. The data from five experiments in which subjects made dichotomous judgements of acquaintances on bipolar dimensions (e.g. pleasant‐unpleasant) were reported. These data indicated that the mean proportion of positive adjectives used in making interpersonal judgements is an excellent approximation of the golden section. An explanation of this finding was offered in terms of Berlyne's ‘strikingness hypothesis’. It was suggested that Boucher & Osgood's ‘Pollyanna hypothesis’ should be extended to include the possibility that, by tending to organize his judgements in the golden section ratio, the person is able to pay special attention to negative events.

ASSIMILATIVE PROJECTION AND CONSTRUCT BALANCE IN THE REPERTORY GRID

The relationship between the degree to which people see others as like themselves (assimilative projection) and the frequency with which they use positive adjectives to describe people was examined in the context of changing role perspectives. The assimilative projection scores of those persons who use a preponderance of positive over negative adjectives were found to be influenced by changes in role perspectives. By contrast, the assimilative projection scores of those persons whose use of adjectives was less ‘maldistributed’ were stable across roles. These results suggest that Boucher & Osgood's (1968) ‘Pollyanna hypothesis’ applies more precisely to persons whose views of themselves are influenced more readily by changing perspectives than to persons who maintain relatively stable conceptions of their own identities in relation to others. The results also have implications for repertory grid methodology, specifically for the practice of controlling for maldistribution. The effect of this control upon the mathematical structure of grids is examined.

Disturbances of connotative meaning in aphasia

Left brain-damaged patients with Broca's aphasia made significantly more errors than did right brain-damaged and hospitalized control patients on a forced-choice semantic differential test that required judgments of connotative meaning. No general conclusions could be reached regarding disturbances of connotative meaning in aphasia. However, a significant bias in aphasics toward making positive evaluations, e.g., Good or Beautiful rather than Bad or Ugly, was tentatively interpreted as an accentuation of the so-called “Pollyanna Hypothesis”, a tendency to look on the bright side of life. Further research is needed in which both connotative and denotative disturbances are assessed in aphasic patients with more precisely-defined loci of lesions.

Two studies on the process of negative modification

The properties of words with negative affix are investigated in two studies. The first analyzed a subset of qualifier adjectives elicited from three age groups. A significant age differential was found for the proportion of words with negative prefix to the number of negatively evaluated words generated; this could not be simply explained by the "Pollyanna hypothesis." In a second study, alternative words of similar meaning were elicited for 80 words: 20 personality-descriptive adjectives, two versions of their negative modification, and antonyms for the 20 words. A measure of informational uncertainty was calculated for each of the four word types across subjects. Significant effects for words with a negative affix result, which are distinct from that obtained with negatively evaluated antonyms. Comment on these findings makes reference to linguistic work on negation while pointing out that, in the context of other experimental studies, this behavior may be subsumed under a more general cognitive process. The observations open up to experimental investigation the subject of the negative prefix and the generative process which probably underlies it.

Pollyanna's personal judgments

AbstractThe Pollyanna hypothesis is extended into the field of intertrait inference to predict that inferential thresholds for positively evaluated characteristics will be lower than those for negatively evaluated characteristics. This prediction is confirmed, and is shown to have important implications for models of inference rules.Data from several studies are analysed to reveal that the Pollyanna threshold effect is reliably greater for women than for men, and it is shown that this effect is unrelated to sex differences in extremity of responding.

The pollyanna hypothesis

The Pollyanna Hypothesis asserts that there is a universal human tendency to use evaluatively positive words (E+) more frequently and diversely than evaluatively negative words (E−) in communicating. Drawing on existing cross-cultural and developmental data, it was demonstrated that (a) across a sample of 13 language/culture communities E+ members of evaluative scales are used significantly more frequently and diversely than their E− opposites, (b) across 11 of these communities negative affixes are applied significantly more often to the E+ members of pairs (to make the E− opposite) than to the E− members (to make the E+ opposite), and (c) across age levels from 7 through 11 E+ members of evaluative pairs appear earlier, have higher frequencies and diversities of usage and take the negative affix more frequently than their E− opposites. Possible biases in the data and alternatives to the Pollyanna hypothesis are considered.