Our identities are the lenses through which we see and experience the world around us. Our social and political identities shape our thoughts and behaviors, including how we process information, how we talk, what we consider moral, how we behave towards other groups, and even who we vote for. At the same time, our cognition and behavior can also shape our identities. At the We-Search Lab, we study how people’s identities shape, and are in turn shaped by, how they think about, talk about, and do politics.
A central focus of our research is the study of links between language, identity, and group dynamics. Our assumption is that people’s language provides a window into how they see themselves, their own groups, and the groups around them. In our lab, we use a range of interdisciplinary methods including surveys, experiments, natural language analysis, and big data analysis of social media data.
We study how social and group identities are formed over time, how they are expressed in conversations and via behavior, and how they are maintained in the face of threat, and how these processes, in turn, shape political outcomes and intergroup relations.
This line of research asks: What psychological processes unfold over time as people join new groups? How do people become enmeshed in political or ideological groups? What does group membership do for us psychologically? Why do some people stay in groups when others leave?
For example, in one project, we analyzed the language of members of political Reddit communities and found that individuals who go on to become long-term, active, committed members use language in distinct ways even in their initial days in the group. Of particular interest, they used language indicative of lower levels of cognitive processing or questioning (words like maybe, because, why, how), perhaps suggesting that being in some types of groups may make us unthinking. In follow-up work, we are trying to understand what exactly this measure of cognitive processing is capturing.
We are also interested in exploring the psychological trajectories of membership in various social groups. That is, what are the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral shifts that occur after we join different types of groups, and how do people make sense of their changing sense of self via evolving narratives over time?
Related papers:
Ashokkumar, A., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2022). Tracking group identity through natural language within groups. PNAS Nexus, 1(2), pgac022. [PDF]
Our projects explore questions such as: What are ways in which identity is expressed or signaled in conversation? Under what conditions do people express dissent? When and why do we refrain from expressing our political opinions? Why do people engage in political action that is symbolic? Why do some people take an idealistic approach to politics while others are more pragmatic? We are also interested in the consequences of political speech and action: How might leaders and media use language in ways that maintain unjust systems? Hoes does political rhetoric serve authoritarian goals? How do people perceive different types of political action? Why do institutions and individuals police others’ political expressions? Our questions touch upon many aspects of political discourse, including censorship and propaganda.
In some projects, we have analyzed intra-group conversations in digital environments, such as political communities on Reddit to identify linguistic markers of group identity. In follow-up work, we are looking at how their fellow group members respond (e.g., via likes), potentially reinforcing or shaping these expressions.
Another line of research focuses on censorship and self-censorship. In one study, we found that people use content moderation tools on social media to keep out ideas that threaten their political identities even when such ideas are conveyed courteously. In ongoing work, we are examining the prevalence and consequences of self-censoring political opinions in online conversations, including the self-censoring of dissent.
We also study political discourse more broadly by analyzing the language of political leaders or language used in news media. In an ongoing project, we are examining how news media report intergroup violence. We ask whether news reports use syntactic forms (e.g., passive voice) in ways that obscure the agency of the group perpetrating the violence, ultimately serving the function of condoning the violence.
Related Papers:
Ashokkumar, A., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2022). Tracking group identity through natural language within groups. PNAS Nexus, 1(2), pgac022. [PDF]
Ashokkumar, A., Talaifar, S., Fraser, W. T., Landabur, R., Buhrmester, M., Gómez, Á., Paredes, B., & Swann, W. B. (2020). Censoring political opposition online: Who does it and why. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 91, 104031. [PDF]
How does loss of our group (e.g., when a sports team loses) shape our identity, and how do we make ourselves feel good when we lose? How do we deal with information that threatens our political beliefs? How do times of crisis shape our collective identities? How do we deal with threats to our moral identity or reputation? How do we remember our group’s past wrongs? Why do countries try to rewrite history? What are ways in which people preemptively avoid threats to their beliefs?
We have studied how groups deal with evidence of group members’ moral wrongdoings. For example, we find that groups try to hide evidence of their group’s wrongdoing. But in some instances, the evidence is already public, the group may try to call out the wrongdoers as a way of protecting the group’s image. We observe such processes across diverse contexts, including in political groups in the US (Ashokkumar et al., 2019, JESP) and families in India (e.g., honor violence; Ashokkumar & Swann, 2022, PSPB).
Another focus is how people deal with threats to their beliefs. People often surround themselves with others who hold similar beliefs as them, which helps them maintain a sense of shared reality and consistency. How do we deal with threats to our sense of consistency? We’ve examined the ways people maintain consistency in their environments, such as censoring ideas they disagree with.
We also study how the threat of crises (e.g., violent events, pandemic) shapes people’s social connections and collective identities. On the one hand, we come together to deal with the crisis. But crises can also fracture existing divisions. We study people’s conversations before and after crises to understand when crisis bring people together, and when they tear us apart.
Related Papers:
Ashokkumar, A., Galaif, M., & Swann, W. B. (2019). Tribalism can corrupt: Why people denounce or protect immoral group members. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 85, 103874. [PDF]
Ashokkumar, A., & Swann, W. B. (2023). Restoring Honor by Slapping or Disowning the Daughter. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 49(6), 823–836. [PDF]
Ashokkumar, A., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2021). Social media conversations reveal large psychological shifts caused by COVID-19’s onset across U.S. cities. Science Advances, 7(39), eabg7843. [PDF]
Ultimately, we are interested in understanding how the identity processes described above shape important social and political outcomes, including intergroup relations, political polarization, and democratic norms. The projects we have described above examine psychological processes relating to identity, language, and group dynamics across contexts, including political polarization, gender-based violence, refugees-related crises, war, and democratic backsliding.
We are study questions such as: How do identity processes exacerbate (or undermine) intergroup conflict? How are narratives used to maintain unjust systems and inequality? What types of rhetoric perpetuate and sustain conflict? How does identity politics shape democracy?