Pronoun Use Reflects Standings in Social Hierarchies

By Ewa Kacewicz, James W. Pennebaker, Matthew Davis, Moongee Jeon, A. Graesser. 2014

498 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bac1701e7255bb51baa09e77dbd916f84f513fd9

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

1. Xuechunzi Bai
2. Susan T. Fiske
3. Gandalf Nicolas

In Social Psychology

1. Xuechunzi Bai
2. Gandalf Nicolas
3. Susan T. Fiske
4. Peter Glick
5. Amy J. C. Cuddy
6. Kira Sanbonmatsu
7. Victor Lavy
8. Cecilia L. Ridgeway

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Gandalf Nicolas
2. Xuechunzi Bai
3. Susan T. Fiske
4. Peter Glick
5. Amy J. C. Cuddy
6. Cecilia L. Ridgeway
7. Victor Lavy
8. Kira Sanbonmatsu

Citations in the corpus

• Connotation Frames of Power and Agency in Modern Films (2017, unknown): “Kacewicz et al. (2014) found an association between using “I” pronouns and being lower status, and conversely between “we” pronouns and being higher status.”
• Tweeting with the Stars: Automated Text Analysis of the Effect of Celebrity Social Media Communications on Consumer Word of Mouth (2019, unknown): “Greater first-personal singular pronoun (I, me) use produces a lower score which is associated with lesser standing in social hierarchies and a greater internally focused style (Kacewicz et al. 2014).”
• Comprehensive stereotype content dictionaries using a semi‐automated method (2020, background): “For example, studies into status differences in language use have shown that higher (vs. lower) status individuals tend to use we more often than I as pronouns (e.g., Kacewicz et al., 2014).”