A pilot study on the relationships between language, personality and attachment styles: A linguistic analysis of descriptive speech

• Published in: The Journal of general psychology Vol. 146; no. 3; pp. 283 - 298
• Main Authors: Fabbro, Anastasia, Crescentini, Cristiano, D'Antoni, Fabio, Fabbro, Franco
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Psychology Press 03.07.2019; Taylor & Francis Inc
• Subjects: Adult attachment; Attachment; discourse analysis; dispositional mindfulness; Language; Mindfulness; Personality; personality traits; Questionnaires; personality traits; dispositional mindfulness; Adult attachment; discourse analysis
• ISSN: 0022-1309; 1940-0888; 1940-0888
• DOI: 10.1080/00221309.2019.1570910

The present exploratory study investigated possible relationships between language and personality, attachment styles, and mindfulness disposition. Sixty-three participants were assessed through the Big-Five inventory questionnaire, the Attachment Style Questionnaire, and the Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale, and then they were asked to look at a picture story and describe it. Narrations were analyzed through a multilevel approach: the number of verbal units and information units reported were counted; the Type/Token Ratio, disfluencies and errors of cohesion were also calculated. Results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that mindfulness and Extraversion were positively related to the number of information units reported about the story. Two dimensions of anxious attachment style presented opposite patterns of association with language expression: individuals high in Need for Approval tended to be more descriptive, while participants high in Preoccupation with Relationships reported less information. Results suggest that individuals' personality, relational histories, and self-awareness may significantly influence their verbal production.