Is your language betraying your character?

How can language reflect people's character?

Some of these patterns are easy to understand. For example, people who are obviously extroverts not only speak louder, but are also more talkative, while introverts are the opposite. Extroverts speak faster, and women tend to chat in groups, while many introverts tend to talk to themselves.

However, even if you change the above factors, such as volume and speaking speed, many details in your language will still inadvertently reveal your personality.

Introversion vs. Extroversion

When it comes to personality, the first thing people think of is often introversion and extroversion, which is also the focus of many psychology researchers.

Professor Camiel Beukeboom of the Free University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands led a team to design such an experiment: they showed 40 volunteers photos of various scenes and asked them to explain to the experimenters what happened in these scenes.

Through studying the language of volunteers, the researchers came to a conclusion: extroverts tend to use more abstract and broad language, while introverts prefer to use specific expressions.

For example, when encountering a good article, an extrovert may say: This article is excellent (this article is excellent), while an introvert may say: This article is very informative (this article is very informative).

Therefore, if a group of introverts chat together, they are more likely to talk about solving some specific problems, such as how to find a better apartment, how to solve problems encountered at work, etc. If a group of extroverts chat together, the topics they talk about are broader and more casual, such as which fitness method is more fashionable, or whether a certain actor's acting skills are off the charts.

Other studies on language and the relationship between introversion and extroversion have similar findings. For example, one study found that introverts are more likely to use articles (a/the), which makes their words more cautious and specific rather than general. Introverts are also more likely to use restrictive words, such as perhaps and maybe, and quantifiable statements, such as specific numbers.

For example, when it's time for dinner, an extrovert might say, "Let's get some food," while an introvert might say, "Perhaps we could go for a sandwich."

In addition, compared to introverts, extroverts prefer a fast-paced life, love to have a drink with others, stay at other people's homes, and are more adventurous. This adventurous spirit is not only reflected in their work and life, but also affects the choice of language of extroverts. They are bolder in their choice of words and are less willing to take the risk of saying the wrong thing.

Are you an emotional person? Language can reveal more about personality than just introversion or extroversion. A person's language can also reveal whether they are open-minded, emotional, diligent and responsible, and friendly.

Some studies have found that people who are easily emotional often use expressions that convey emotional anxiety, such as: I carry around a monstrous sadness.

Emotional people also use singular personal pronouns like I and me more often, especially when their emotions are fluctuating. For example, when traveling, a normal person might tweet something like "We're so happy!", while an emotional person is more likely to say "I'm having a good time."

Open-minded people like to use words related to feelings, such as: You just need to be heard.

Hardworking and responsible people are more likely to use words related to work and achievement, such as: We can work on it.

A group of German psychologists conducted an experiment in which they gave 100 students five prompt words, including plane crash, parlourmaid, fireworks, Middle Ages, and supermarket, and asked them to write a short story using these prompt words. The results of the experiment found that the most creative stories came from open-minded people, and stories written by people with friendly personalities were also more pro-social.

Change the language and be who you want to be

Many studies have found that the correlation between language and personality is so stable and consistent that people can guess the personality traits of a complete stranger almost accurately based on their words and blog, Twitter and other posts.

Everyone has made this kind of guess about a person's personality through language countless times without realizing it. For example, if you see an email address that contains a lot of numbers, you will often think that the owner of the email address is probably not serious enough; and if you see a humorous email address, you will think that the owner of the email address must be an extrovert and lively person. Although this guess is not always correct, we still can't help but do it.

The relationship between language and personality is very useful in many situations. For example, if the HR of a company masters such skills, they can use it to judge whether the personality of a job applicant meets the job requirements. Another example is when people are dating, they can judge whether the other person's personality matches their own through small talk.

Perhaps we can't completely hide our personality traits by changing the way we use words, and of course most of the time there is no need to do so. However, language and personality often interact with each other. If we can be more careful when we speak, we can definitely make our personality develop in the direction we want.

So, how do you plan to show your personality by leaving a comment below?