Words reveal health: researchers have learned to assess people's mental states through their speech.

A recent study by scientists has revealed that the habitual use of negative vocabulary in everyday speech may be closely linked to the worsening of depression and anxiety symptoms over time, regardless of an individual's mental health status. Thus, researchers have identified another crucial early indicator of deteriorating psychological well-being, which could assist in initiating treatment sooner, as reported by PsyPost.

The research, published in the journal Cognition & Emotion, contributes to the growing body of work aimed at utilizing natural language models as indicators of mental health, particularly for prevalent conditions like depression and anxiety. In the study conducted by Izabela Kazmierczak and her team, the focus was on how the use of negative words in natural language can reflect and even predict psychological complications, offering a novel approach to monitoring these conditions.

The study involved 40 participants who had recently experienced a significant negative life event, enabling researchers to examine the impact of negative vocabulary without therapeutic intervention. The depression and anxiety symptoms of each participant were assessed using the SCID-I diagnostic tool and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Participants recorded descriptions of meaningful life events at three points throughout the year, corresponding to different stages of emotional adaptation—shock, crisis, and recovery.

These narratives, transcribed and analyzed using Polish sentiment dictionaries, allowed researchers to track how their linguistic trends correlated with emotional symptoms. The results indicated that a consistent and frequent use of negatively charged words correlated with heightened symptoms of depression and anxiety, regardless of clinical diagnosis. This was true for both depression groups and those without depression, suggesting that frequent use of negative words could serve as a marker for mental health issues.

Interestingly, while the use of positive vocabulary is somewhat associated with lower levels of depression and anxiety, this relationship was weaker and less stable than that observed with negative vocabulary. Changes in positive or negative vocabulary over time did not align with changes in depression or anxiety symptoms. This suggests that stable linguistic patterns, rather than short-term shifts, may provide more reliable information about mental health, according to the authors.

Researchers highlighted the value of monitoring persistent linguistic trends as potential indicators of mental health status, rather than focusing solely on transient shifts in language sentiment. However, they note a limitation in the use of conversational speech, which may not fully reflect the language employed by individuals in other forms, such as written communication or social media messages.

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