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>> As we started analyzing first dozens, then hundreds, then thousands,
then hundreds of thousands of blogs and other texts,
we started seeing different features of personality that would come out.
That the words people used really reflected who they were.
And one of the most striking -- and now to me obvious --
was the differences between men and women.
In a sense, I think, we all have a --
a belief that men and women talk in certain ways.
But it turns out most beliefs that people have are completely wrong.
So if I asked you: Who uses the following words more?
Men or women.
The word "I," or "I," "me," and "my"; articles "a," "an," and "the";
emotion words; first-person plural "we," "us," and "our."
Now if you're sitting there thinking, you're going to say, well,
it's obvious men use "I" more; women use "we" more.
Women use more emotion words.
And articles...
I'll make a guess there.
Let's say women.
Well, if you did that -- almost everybody would make those guesses --
you were wrong on all four counts.
Don't feel bad because I made those same mistakes myself.
But, as we've gone through,
we find across the board women use the word "I" more than men do.
"We" -- "we," "us," and "our" ironically there's no difference.
"We" is a complicated word.
So, for example, we -- there are kind of two "We's."
There's the -- the "we": You and me together we're -- we --
we really care about each other.
But there's also this "We" of: "We need to take out the trash."
As I have said to my son in the past.
And that doesn't really mean "you and I need to carry the trash out together."
It really means "You" need the take out the trash.
And women do use this warmly, and men tend to use it in a more cold,
distant way; but it -- it averages out.
They use "We" about the same.
And emotion words, no difference.
Men and women use emotion words about the same.
And articles -- you didn't have any idea.
Articles are fascinating because you use articles "a," "an,"
and "the" before a concrete noun so you --
you only use an article when you're saying,
"The store," "The bread," "A chair."
Well, who uses concrete nouns?
People who are -- who are naming things, who are talking about things
in a really solid, concrete way.
Men. And there's a huge difference.
Men use these at much higher rates.
Now, as you start thinking about this, it tells you that we can begin
to analyze how men and women are thinking.
Women also use more pronouns in general.
Women tend to use more social words in general.
But it also tells us that men tend to talk about concrete things.
Women tend to talk more about human relationships.
And we can begin to get a sense of the way people think,
the way people are connecting with others by looking at these words.
Now we've also been able to stand back and look
at other kind of personality variables.
So we can look at self-esteem or confidence.
Who uses word -- how would a confident person
versus a not confident person differ?
Well, someone who's not confident, someone who is anxious,
someone who's even depressed tends to pay more attention
to themselves a little bit more; and when they do,
they use the word "I" at higher rates.
Going just the opposite of what, I think, many of us think.
I think most of us think, well, the confident,
arrogant person uses "I" all the time.
They actually don't.
They use "You" all the time.
They -- they don't talk -- they don't actually make reference to themselves.
Whereas, the cowering, nervous person says, "well, I feel this,"
and "I'm worried about this."
So we can start to get a sense of certain features of personality just
by looking at these little words.