The Secret Life of Pronouns (42 page)

OBAMA: This probably has more to do with our economic future than anything and that means it also has
national security implication, because there’s never been
nation on earth that saw its economy decline and continued to maintain its primacy as
military power. So we’ve got to get our education system right. Now, typically, what’s happened is that there’s been
debate between more money or reform, and I think we need both. In some cases, we are going to have to invest.

In using almost twice as many articles in answering the question, McCain breaks down the problem into its components. Education, in his thinking, is a civil rights issue, part of a struggle, that is not fixed by sending a low-income child to a bad school. It is this and that but not that. Obama, on the other hand, frames his answer in a more dynamic way—it is linked to the changing past and future. Whereas McCain thinks concretely about the problem, Obama is more abstract, relying on broader ongoing and ever-changing principles, such as economic future, educational systems, money or reform, and investment.

In looking back over the thinking styles—complex versus simple, causal versus noncausal, and dynamic versus categorical—no single style is naturally better or more productive than another. Sometimes complex, causal, and dynamic thinking styles can help people get through the day; sometimes these same styles can be a problem. In reality, all of us bounce around in our thinking styles depending on what we are thinking about. Just because Obama is abstract in answering a question about education, it doesn’t tell us how he thinks about his decision to smoke a cigarette or take aspirin for a headache.

A Note on the Author

JAMES W. PENNEBAKER is the Regents Centennial Professor of Liberal Arts and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to being an avid researcher and teacher, he enjoys running, movies, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, and artichokes. He and his wife, Ruth Pennebaker, who is a respected author, live in Austin. Their daughter, Teal, lives in Washington, D.C., and their son, Nick, lives in Austin.

You can analyze your own language using his websites, www.SecretLifeOfPronouns.com and www.analyzewords.com.

By the Same Author

The Psychology of Physical Symptoms

Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotion

Writing to Heal

Emotion, Disclosure, and Health
(as editor)

Collective Memories of Political Events
(as editor)

Copyright © 2011 by James W. Pennebaker

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles
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Published by Bloomsbury Press, New York

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Pennebaker, James W.
The secret life of pronouns : what our words say about us /
James W. Pennebaker. - 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 978-1-60819-480-3 (hardcover)
1. English language—Pronoun. 2. English language—Grammar. I. Title.
PE1261.P46 2011
425'.55—dc22
2011001289

First published in the United States by Bloomsbury Press in 2011
This e-book edition published in 2011

E-book ISBN: 978-1-60819-497-1

www.bloomsburypress.com