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The Exception or the Rule: Using Words to Assess Analytic Thinking, Donald Trump, and the American Presidency

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Kayla N Jordan at University of Texas at Austin
Kayla N Jordan
James W. Pennebaker at University of Texas at Austin
James W. Pennebaker
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Abstract

The results of the 2016 presidential election left many political scholars perplexed. Why was Donald Trump elected and what was his appeal? Does he represent a new way of thinking or is he merely an extension of trends that have long been in place? The answer to some of these questions may be found in the language of political figures from Trump back to George Washington. The current project focuses on a central dimension of language that reveals the degree to which a person is relying on formal, logical, analytic thinking or more in-the-moment, informal, narrative thinking. Using text analytic methods, it is possible to identify at which point along an analytic-narrative continuum any speech or language sample falls. The analysis of speeches, debates, and various documents demonstrates that Trump stands out from other politicians as being very low in analytic thinking. However, he represents the next step in a trend wherein most Presidents and presidential candidates have been becoming less analytic. Trump may be an anomaly, but he is also a part of a long-developing presidential pattern.
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The Exception or the Rule: Using Words to Assess Analytic
Thinking, Donald Trump, and the American Presidency
Kayla N. Jordan and James W. Pennebaker
University of Texas at Austin
The results of the 2016 presidential election left many political scholars perplexed.
Why was Donald Trump elected and what was his appeal? Does he represent a new way
of thinking or is he merely an extension of trends that have long been in place? The
answer to some of these questions may be found in the language of political figures
from Trump back to George Washington. The current project focuses on a central
dimension of language that reveals the degree to which a person is relying on formal,
logical, analytic thinking or more in-the-moment, informal, narrative thinking. Using
text analytic methods, it is possible to identify at which point along an analytic-
narrative continuum any speech or language sample falls. The analysis of speeches,
debates, and various documents demonstrates that Trump stands out from other
politicians as being very low in analytic thinking. However, he represents the next step
in a trend wherein most Presidents and presidential candidates have been becoming less
analytic. Trump may be an anomaly, but he is also a part of a long-developing
presidential pattern.
What is the significance of this article for the general public?
This commentary seeks to explore recent political events, namely the election of
Donald Trump, through language. By examining political language, we can gain a
better understanding not only of Donald Trump but also where he stands in the
larger presidential picture.
Keywords: analytic thinking, political language, American presidency, text analytics,
political psychology
The 2016 elections, both in the United States
and elsewhere, have left many experts baffled.
With Donald Trump’s election in the United
States and the general rise of nationalism/
populism globally, social scientists are strug-
gling to understand how recent events fit into
long-held scientific beliefs about politics and
politicians. One method for understanding the
changes in the political landscape is to examine
changes in the language of politicians. The cur-
rent project explores the political language
among recent presidential candidates within the
context of the history of the presidency using
computerized text analyses. The goal is to de-
termine the degree to which Donald Trump is
substantially different from recent Presidents in
the ways he thinks and talks.
Trump is seen by many as an outlier. Perhaps
the most-discussed psychological dimension is
his apparent unorthodox thinking style. His sup-
porters praised him for being straightforward
and “telling it like it is,” seeing Trump’s simple,
intuitive message as a refreshing change. His
opponents criticized him for being superficial
and offering simplistic, uninformed solutions to
complex problems. Whereas people’s impres-
sions serve as a useful starting point, quantify-
Kayla N. Jordan and James W. Pennebaker, Department
of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin.
James W. Pennebaker is an author of the Linguistic
Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC2015), which is owned by
his company, Pennebaker Conglomerates. All profits from
sales of LIWC are donated to the Department of Psychology
at the University of Texas at Austin.
Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-
dressed to Kayla N. Jordan, Department of Psychology,
University of Texas at Austin, 108 East Dean Keeton, Stop
A8000, Austin, TX 78712-1043. E-mail: kaylajordan@
utexas.edu
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Translational Issues in Psychological Science © 2017 American Psychological Association
2017, Vol. 3, No. 3, 312–316 2332-2136/17/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/tps0000125
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... Importantly, linguistic approaches are particularly useful for uncovering otherwise difficult-tocapture cognitive and affective dynamics in large volumes of data (Boyd & Schwartz, 2021;Hannigan et al., 2019;Jordan & Pennebaker, 2017;Macanovic, 2022;McAllister et al., 2024;Min & Park, 2019;Tausczik & Pennebaker, 2010), at collective levels of analysis and across cultural contexts (e.g., Bail, 2014;Sharifan, 2009), including within the field of entrepreneurship (Cardon et al., 2011;Hang & van Weezel, 2007;von Bloh et al., 2020). Together, these insights suggest that the emotional and cognitive linguistic markers of a country's entrepreneurshiprelated media stories can explicate latent cognitive and emotional processes underlying the formation and change of national cultural attitudes towards entrepreneurship. ...
... Regarding collective cognition, prior research typically captures the rate at which the adult population perceives good entrepreneurial opportunities and intends to pursue them (Justo et al., 2008). To complement prior approaches with a broader understanding of collective cognition and to capture a substantially different aspect of national culture, we focus on analytical thinking-a linguistic marker that represents the extent to which something is discussed in a logical, evidence-based, and structured manner (Jordan & Pennebaker, 2017;Tausczik & Pennebaker, 2010). This aspect of collective cognition is particularly useful in understanding how a society processes and evaluates information vis-à-vis entrepreneurship. ...
... This aspect of collective cognition is particularly useful in understanding how a society processes and evaluates information vis-à-vis entrepreneurship. The added advantage of emotional tone and analytical thinking is their generalizability across levels of analysis and contexts (Jordan & Pennebaker, 2017;Monzani et al., 2021;Pennebaker et al., 2015;Tausczik & Pennebaker, 2010). ...
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