The Secret Life of Pronouns_ What Our Words Say About Us - James W. Pennebaker [129]
The dynamic writer is far more personal and works to tell a story. The language is more informal and simple, using shorter words. Every sentence has multiple verbs, which has the effect of making the story more alive.
Although both of these students came to college with virtually identical high school records and received liberal arts degrees, the categorical thinker had a much higher grade-point average every year in college. It wasn’t because the categorical thinker was a better writer. Rather, a categorical thinking style is more congruent with what we reward in college. Most exams, for example, ask students to break down complex problems into their component parts. At the same time, very few courses ask students to discuss ongoing events or to tell their own stories.
Most universities will never use word counting programs to decide who to admit to college. Once students discovered such a system was operative, their admissions essays would be a jumble of big words and articles, and practically verb-free. Instead, findings such as these point to ways we might think about training our students in high school and earlier. To the degree that categorical thinking is encouraged and rewarded in our educational systems, students should be explicitly trained in doing it.
Another argument is that we should explore whether dynamic thinking should be encouraged at the college level. Telling stories and tracking changes in people’s lives are skills that can serve people well. It also raises the question about how successful people are in the years after college. Is it possible that dynamic thinkers are better adjusted or happier? And finally, how flexible is thinking style? It is entirely possible that all of us occasionally need to think categorically and, at other times, dynamically.
USING WORDS TO PREDICT A BETTER LIFE AFTER PRISON
Drug and alcohol abuse takes a massive toll on society. One way that many states have attempted to curb and treat abuse is by establishing therapeutic communities—which are essentially treatment prisons where people are given the opportunity to undergo intensive drug and alcohol rehabilitation over several months after they have been convicted of a drug-related crime. If the participants successfully complete the program and stay drug- or alcohol-free for a specified time after they are released, their records are usually expunged. Most therapeutic communities require intensive group therapy along with writing exercises.
One of my former graduate students, Anne Vano, conducted an ambitious project to learn if the ways women wrote within a treatment facility might predict their lives once they were released from prison. Working with a single therapeutic community, Anne collected and transcribed writing samples from about 120 women. The writing samples she focused on were essays that the women wrote within about a week of their being released. The essays were expected to be personal and heartfelt. In the months afterward, Anne worked with the warden’s office to collect follow-up information, such as the women’s abilities to maintain jobs and whether or not they violated their parole or were re-arrested.
The stories the women wrote were powerful by any measure. They often described instances of being the victims of physical and sexual abuse and, at the same time, detailed their own deplorable behaviors toward others, such as their children. They often expressed great anxiety about their leaving the prison to return to an uncertain home life.
After leaving the prison, 15 percent of the 120 women were arrested and another 10 percent jumped parole four months after the program was completed. About 65 percent were holding down a steady