This Language Shift Could Signal an Impending Breakup
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 964 Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2021
⏱️ 13 minutes
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Summary
Learn about a change in language use that could mean a breakup is on the way; why ogre-faced spiders are basically ninja assassins, with help from Cornell University professor Ron Hoy; and how it’s possible to exercise too much.
A change in pronoun use could signal an impending breakup by Kelsey Donk
- Use of pronouns may show signs of an impending breakup. (2021). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/uota-uop012721.php
- Seraj, S., Blackburn, K. G., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2021). Language left behind on social media exposes the emotional and cognitive costs of a romantic breakup. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(7), e2017154118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2017154118
Additional resources from Ron Hoy:
- Ron Hoy's faculty page at Cornell University: https://nbb.cornell.edu/ronald-r-hoy
- Hoy's 2016 study on hearing in jumping spiders: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2016/10/jumping-spiders-can-hear-distance-new-study-proves
Yes, You Really Can Exercise Too Much by Ashley Hamer
- Rhabdomyolysis: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia. (2019). Medlineplus.gov. https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000473.htm
- Cutler, T. S., DeFilippis, E. M., Unterbrink, M. E., & Evans, A. T. (2016). Increasing Incidence and Unique Clinical Characteristics of Spinning-Induced Rhabdomyolysis. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 26(5), 429–431. https://doi.org/10.1097/jsm.0000000000000281
- As Workouts Intensify, a Harmful Side Effect Grows More Common (Published 2017). (2021). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/well/move/as-workouts-intensify-a-harmful-side-effect-grows-more-common.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fwell
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from |
| 0:04.8 | Curiosity.com. I'm Cody Goff. And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today you learn about a |
| 0:08.8 | change in language that could mean a breakup is on the way, why ogre-faced spiders are basically |
| 0:14.0 | Ninja Assassins with help from Cornell University Professor Ron Hoy and how it's |
| 0:19.2 | possible to exercise too much. |
| 0:21.3 | Let's satisfy some curiosity. |
| 0:24.2 | If only you could see the signs of a breakup coming, right? |
| 0:28.6 | Well, scientists from the University of Texas at Austin |
| 0:31.7 | now have some evidence that there are signs in everyday |
| 0:34.8 | conversation and they appear months before a breakup happens. The researchers |
| 0:40.5 | analyzed more than 1 million Reddit posts made by over 6,800 users. |
| 0:46.2 | They found the Reddit users on the R Breakups subreddit, which is, as the name implies, |
| 0:51.4 | for people going through breakups. |
| 0:53.0 | The researchers analyzed the language these people had used in their posts |
| 0:57.0 | up to a year before their breakup and up to a year after. |
| 1:00.0 | What they found was a notable shift in language up to three months before the breakup, a shift that peaked on the exact day of the breakup. |
| 1:09.0 | It didn't quite matter whether the person was getting dumped or doing the dumping. |
| 1:14.0 | And people's language didn't return to normal until about six months after the breakup. |
| 1:19.8 | So what's the tell? |
| 1:21.4 | Well, someone who's about to go through a breakup apparently starts to speak, or at least right, in more personal and informal ways. |
| 1:29.0 | To the researchers, that suggests a drop in analytical thinking. People on the brink of a breakup |
| 1:35.7 | use words like I or we more often than they had before and show signs of more cognitive |
... |
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