Linguistic Markers of Psychological State through Media Interviews: John Kerry and John Edwards in 2004, Al Gore in 2000

What can we learn about presidential candidates by examining their speech in natural conversation? In the present study, the television interviews from the 2004 Democratic presidential primary campaign of John Kerry ( N = 29) and John Edwards ( N = 34) were examined using linguistic analyses. Results indicate that Kerry and Edwards were similar in their use of positive emotion words, but that Kerry used significantly higher rates of negative emotion words than did Edwards. Comparisons with televised interviews of Al Gore from the 2000 presidential campaign ( N = 17) revealed striking similarities in the linguistic styles of Gore and Kerry. Gore's linguistic style overlapped considerably with that of Kerry on pronoun usage and many cognitive domains. This study points to how linguistic analyses can give us a clearer picture of how political candidates think, act, and feel.