Journal of Research in Personality 43 (2009) 528–531

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Journal of Research in Personality

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Brief Report

Words that predict outstanding performance

Jo Ann A. Abe *

Psychology Department, Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent Street, New Haven CT 06515, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Available online 19 January 2009

Keywords:Experiential learningReflectionPositive emotionsText-analysis

0092-6566/$ - see front matter � 2009 Elsevier Inc. Adoi:10.1016/j.jrp.2009.01.010

* Fax: +1 203 392 6805.E-mail address: abej1@southernct.edu.

a b s t r a c t

This study applied word count strategies developed by expressive writing researchers to examinewhether the words students use to describe and reflect on their field practicum experiences would pre-dict practicum supervisors’ ratings of their performance. The weekly journals of 66 students who com-pleted a practicum at a mental health or school setting were analyzed using a computerized text-analysis program. As expected, positive emotion words and ‘‘insight” words were positively correlatedwith almost all dimensions of evaluation, with the exception of organizational ability, and ‘‘we” wordswere associated with dimensions that focused on interpersonal relations. These findings further supportthe view that positive emotion words and ‘‘insight” words are powerful markers of cognitive broadeningand behavioral flexibility and that ‘‘we” words index feelings of affiliation and belonging. As one mightexpect, there was an increase in ‘‘we” words and a decrease in ‘‘anxiety” words over the course of theinternship.

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1. Introduction

Over the past two decades, there has been a tremendous growthin service-based experiential learning courses at universities acrossthe country. A growing body of research shows that these coursesare associated with a host of positive personal and interpersonaloutcomes including moral development, leadership skills, andappreciation of diversity (Eyler & Giles, 1999; for review see Eyler,Giles, Stenson, & Gray, 2001). These studies reveal, however, thatsuccessful experiential learning is moderated by program charac-teristics. In general, students at high quality placements and incourses in which service and academic work are closely integratedthrough reflective activities such as group discussions and journalkeeping show more positive outcomes than students who are incourses with little integration. In fact, a large scale study on ser-vice-learning identifies reflection as ‘‘one of the core process vari-ables” (Eyler & Giles, 1999, p. xii) involved in successfulexperiential learning.

The question that arises is why reflection is such a criticalcomponent of successful experiential learning. According to theliterature on the internship experience, students typically gothrough several developmental phases during the course of theirinternship, as they face the challenge of assimilating new infor-mation, acquiring new skills, and developing new relationships(Sweitzer & King, 2008). Each of the phases is characterized bya unique set of issues and concerns and often elicits strong emo-tions, which may serve as catalysts for personal and cognitive

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growth (Abe, 2005; Abe & Izard, 1999). However, as Sweitzerand King (2008) state ‘‘experience, both intellectual and emo-tional” is merely the ‘‘raw material” of the internship. Successfulexperiential learning occurs through a cycle of experience, reflec-tion, and action, whereby reflecting on experience enhancesunderstanding, and enhanced understanding of experience, leadsto more effective action.

In support of the foregoing view, an impressive body of researchon expressive writing demonstrates that writing about emotionalexperiences is associated with a host of positive psychologicaland behavioral outcomes (for a recent review see Chung & Penne-baker, 2007). These studies, however, reveal that merely describingan emotional experience or venting emotions about an experienceis not associated with salutary outcomes. The individual mustaffectively and cognitively process the experience and make an ef-fort to assimilate and integrate the experience by creating a coher-ent narrative. The recent research on expressive writing hasutilized computerized word count programs to identify categoriesof words that mediate the positive outcomes associated withexpressive writing.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the wordcount strategies developed by expressive writing researchers canshed light on the processes involved in successful experientiallearning. The major goal of the study was to examine whetherthe words students use to describe and reflect on their practicumexperiences in their weekly journals predict practicum supervisors’ratings of their performance at the end of the semester. A subsidi-ary goal of this study was to examine changes in students’language use as they go through the different developmentalstages of the internship.

Jo Ann A. Abe / Journal of Research in Personality 43 (2009) 528–531 529

Based on past research, this study predicts that three categoriesof words would be associated with supervisors’ ratings of students’performance. The first category is positive emotion words. A grow-ing body of research has found that positive emotions are not sim-ply markers of satisfaction and well-being, but also serve tobroaden a person’s thought–action repertoire, prompting the indi-vidual to pursue a wider range of activities and goals (Fredrickson,2001). Positive emotions have also been found to undo or bufferthe deleterious effects of negative emotions and thus contributeto resilience (Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004). More recent researchhas also shown that positive emotions enhance feelings of self-other overlap and is thus likely to foster feelings of empathyand positive relations with others (Waugh & Fredrickson,2006). The second category of words that is expected to predictsupervisors’ ratings is ‘‘insight” words, which includes wordssuch as ‘‘realize”, ‘‘understand”, and ‘‘reason.” An impressivebody of research has shown that ‘‘insight” words are powerfulmarkers of efforts to cognitively process and make sense ofevents. In particular, the combination of ‘‘insight” words withpositive emotion words may index the extent to which the per-son is stepping back from an event and reappraising it in abroader context (Pennebaker & Chung, 2007). The last categoryof words that is expected to predict supervisors’ ratings is‘‘we” words, which has been found to be a powerful marker offeelings of affiliation and belonging (Chung & Pennebaker,2007). With respect to changes in students’ language use overtime, this study predicts that as students adapt to and feel morecomfortable at their placements, there would be an increase intheir use of ‘‘we” words and a decrease in their use of ‘‘anxiety”words.

2. Method

2.1. Participants and procedure

The participants in this study were 66 students (94% female)who were enrolled in an undergraduate mental health specializa-tion program and completed a 150 h field practicum at a varietyof sites including inpatient psychiatric units, outpatient commu-nity mental health centers, and school settings. All of the studentswere engaged in structured activities (seminar, group supervision,individual supervision, weekly journals) that provided them withample opportunity to process their practicum experiencesthroughout the semester. In their weekly journals, students wereencouraged to not only describe their practicum experiences, butto also elaborate on their thoughts and feelings associated withtheir experiences. Only participants who had complete journals en-tries were included in this study. Due to the limited enrollment inthe field practicum course, the data for this study were collectedover the course of several years.

Table 1Correlations between supervisors’ ratings and students’ language use.

Dimension rated Mean (SD) Word count

1. Rapport with clients/students 4.10 (0.87) �0.042. Relationship with staff members 4.28 (0.81) 0.093. Overall professional behavior/demeanor 4.30 (0.86) �0.044. Use of supervision and feedback 4.23 (0.87) �0.095. Organizational ability 4.24 (0.82) �0.036. Motivation to seek out learning experiences 4.34 (0.90) �0.097. Overall impression of student 4.39 (0.86) 0.03

Note: supervisors’ ratings: 5 = outstanding; 4 = above average; 3 = average; 2 = below acentages of total words for all of the other dimensions.* p < 0.05, one-tailed.** p < 0.01.

At the end of the semester, the students’ site supervisors wereasked to complete a rating scale designed to assess students’ per-formance in several key areas as well as assign a global rating oftheir overall impression of students’ performance. The students’weekly journals were submitted to the faculty supervisor, butnot to the site supervisors, so the site supervisors’ ratings of thestudents’ performance were made without any knowledge of thecontent of students’ journals.

2.2. Text-analysis program

The students’ journals were cleaned and analyzed using Lin-guistic Inquiry and Word Count program (LIWC, Pennebaker,Chung, Ireland, Gonzales, & Booth, 2007), which is a widely usedand well-validated text-analysis program. This program searchesfor target words or word stems, categorizes them into linguisticdimensions, and then converts the raw counts to percentages of to-tal words.

3. Results

The correlations between students’ LIWC scores and supervi-sors’ ratings of students’ performance are displayed in Table 1. Asthe table shows, the total number of words that students used intheir journals over the course of the semester was not correlatedwith any of the dimensions of supervisors’ ratings, indicating thatmerely how much students write about their practicum experi-ences is not predictive of their performance. In keeping withexpectations, positive emotion words and ‘‘insight” words werecorrelated with almost all of the dimensions of performance, withthe exception of organizational ability, and ‘‘we” words were pos-itively correlated with the dimensions that focused on interper-sonal relations. In contrast to positive emotion words, negativeemotion words were not associated with any of the dimensionsof evaluation. The results were the same when discrete negativeemotion dimensions (anxiety, anger, sadness) and curvilinear rela-tions were examined.

To examine whether positive emotion words, ‘‘insight” words,and ‘‘we” words would correctly classify students according totheir overall level of performance, students were divided intotwo groups, based on their supervisors’ overall impression scores.Given that over half of the students were rated as outstanding,the students were divided into outstanding vs. above average/aver-age groups, and a binary logistic regression with the three catego-ries of words as predictors was conducted. The overall model washighly significant (Chi Square = 28.79, Nagelkerke R2 = 0.48,p < 0.0005) and correctly classified 80% of the students. Each ofthe three predictors made a unique contribution to predictingsupervisors’ overall impression of students (Bs = 5.18 to 1.68,ps < 0.003 to 0.028).

LIWC dimensions

We Insight Positive emotions Negative emotions

0.25* 0.11 0.23* �0.130.32** 0.24* 0.27* 0.0517 0.31** 0.32** 0.040.24* 0.29* 0.26* �0.050.07 0.10 0.16 �0.010.19 0.24* 0.23* 0.090.28* 0.27* 0.41** 0.10

verage; 1 = unacceptable with the exception of word count, LIWC computes per-

530 Jo Ann A. Abe / Journal of Research in Personality 43 (2009) 528–531

According to Sweitzer and King (2008), students typically gothrough five distinct phases (anticipation, disillusionment, con-frontation, competence, and culmination) during their internship.To examine changes in students’ language use over time, the stu-dents’ journals were, therefore, divided into five equal segments,and a series of repeated measures ANOVAs with phase as the with-in subject variable and students’ overall performance (outstandingvs. above average/average) as the between subject variable wereconducted. In these sets of analyses, the discrete dimensions ofnegative emotion words were used instead of the global dimensionof negative emotions words because students were expected toshow a decrease in anxiety over the course of the semester, butmaybe show an increase in anger and sadness (Sweitzer & King,2008).

The repeated measures ANOVAs yielded a significant linear ef-fect for ‘‘we” words, ‘‘anxiety” words, and ‘‘anger” words, Fs (1,64) = 10.18, 11.91, and 8.18 respectively, all ps < 0.005, with ‘‘we”words gradually increasing over time for both groups, and ‘‘anxi-ety” words showing a gradual decrease. ‘‘Anger” words showed amore complex pattern, peaking for the above average/averagegroup during the second phase (disillusionment), and for the out-standing group towards the end of the semester. ‘‘Insight” wordsdid not yield a significant effect of phase, but yielded a significantPhase � Performance level interaction, F (1, 64) = 10.06, p < 0.002),with the students rated as outstanding using higher levels of ‘‘in-sight” words towards the beginning of the semester and showinga gradual decline over time, and the students rated as above aver-age/average showing the exact opposite pattern. By the end of thesemester, the two groups converged in their use of ‘‘insight” words.In contrast to the findings for ‘‘insight” words, the students rated asoutstanding used higher levels of positive emotion words and ‘‘we”words during all five phases of the internship.

4. Discussion

This study found that the words students use to describe andreflect on their practicum experiences are highly predictive of theirsupervisors’ ratings of their performance. The findings from thisstudy are particularly impressive if one takes into account thatthere were several factors that were likely to have attenuated therelations between students’ language use and supervisors’ ratings.First, the majority of the students in this study were rated verypositively by their supervisors, which restricted the range of theperformance scores. Second, the participants in this study com-pleted their practicum requirements at a wide range of settingsand were rated by many different supervisors, who were likely tohave had varying expectations of field practicum students. The factthat, in spite of these factors, this study yielded such robust asso-ciations between positive emotion words, ‘‘insight” words, and‘‘we” words with various dimensions of performance, furtherunderscores the predictive power of these words (Chung & Penne-baker, 2007).

Most of the results from this study were highly consistent withpredictions derived from past research. Positive emotion wordsand ‘‘insight” words were associated with positive relationshipswith others, motivation to seek out new learning experiences,and overall professional competence, which is consistent withthe view that these words serve as markers for cognitive broaden-ing and behavioral flexibility. ‘‘We” words were associated withdimensions that tapped into interpersonal relations, which furthersupports the view that these words index feelings of affiliation andbelonging. In terms of changes in students’ language use, this studyrevealed a decrease in the use of ‘‘anxiety” words and an increasein the use of ‘‘we” words over time, which is what one would ex-pect as students feel increasingly comfortable at their placements

and with the people with whom they work. The increase in angerwords during some of the subsequent phases, probably reflects thefeelings of frustration that students’ experienced, as they grappledwith the issues and concerns associated with each of the phases.

Several of the findings from this study were, however, some-what surprising. In this study, the students who were rated as‘‘outstanding” used higher levels of ‘‘insight” words at the begin-ning of the internship, but showed a linear decline in the use ofthese words over time, whereas the above average/average groupshowed the exact opposite pattern. By contrast, previous studieson expressive writing have generally found that increases in ‘‘in-sight” words are associated with the most positive outcomes(Pennebaker, 1997). One possible explanation for the discrepancyin the pattern of findings is that the present study focused on ongo-ing emotional experiences, whereas previous studies focused on apast emotional upheaval. At any rate, the findings involving ‘‘in-sight” words indicate that students who hit the ground running,so to speak, and begin to actively cognitively process their experi-ences at the outset of the internship rather than later have moreopportunities to translate their reflections into outstandingperformance.

Another finding from this study that was somewhat unexpectedwas that both discrete and global dimensions of negative emotionwords showed no associations with supervisor ratings. In general,previous studies on expressive writing have found that moderatelevels of negative emotion words are associated with the most sal-utary outcomes (Pennebaker, 1997). One possible explanation forthe discrepancy in findings is that the students in this study werealso receiving individual and group supervision and used theseother avenues to process their negative emotions.

The literature on experiential learning has long emphasized thecycle between experience, reflection, and action. Given that thestudents rated as outstanding used higher levels of positive emo-tion words and ‘‘we” words than the students rated as above aver-age/average during all phases of the internship, the question thatarises is did the act of reflecting on and writing about their experi-ences, in fact, contribute to their outstanding performance? Or didthe students who were rated as outstanding simply feel happier attheir placements and feel closer to people with whom theyworked? Several studies have found that the act of reflecting onand writing about relationships does, in fact, contribute to positiverelationship outcomes (e.g., Slatcher & Pennebaker, 2006). Further-more, preliminary data from an ongoing study reveals that, con-trary to what one might expect, positive emotion words, ‘‘we”words, and ‘‘insight” words are not associated with students’ over-all level of satisfaction with their practicum (Abe, 2009). Taken to-gether, these findings indicate that the words students used intheir journals did not merely reflect their psychological state, butthat the act of reflecting on and expressing their positive emotionsand feelings of affiliation contributed to more effective action andmore positive relationships over time.

Another question that arises from this study is whether similarresults would have been obtained if the participants in this studyhad been predominantly male instead of female. A recent largescale study that systematically investigated gender differences inlanguage use with the LIWC found that there were no differencesbetween men and women in their use of positive emotion wordsand ‘‘we” words, but that women used somewhat higher levelsof ‘‘insight” words than men (Newman, Groom, Handelman, &Pennebaker, 2008). Even though the extant research has revealedsurprisingly few robust gender differences in language use, theexternal correlates for specific word categories may, nevertheless,differ between men and women. For example, cross-cultural re-search has long demonstrated that the same psychological referentmay have different meanings across different cultural groups (e.g.,Abe, 2004). To date, the research on gender differences in language

Jo Ann A. Abe / Journal of Research in Personality 43 (2009) 528–531 531

use has tended to neglect this issue and, therefore, it warrants fur-ther investigation.

Several other suggestions may be made to extend the presentstudy. In this study, successful experiential learning was assessedusing supervisors’ ratings of students’ performance. Given that pre-vious research on experiential learning has relied almost exclu-sively on self-report measures and student interviews (Eyleret al., 2001), the use of supervisors’ evaluations in this study makesan important contribution to the extant research. However, as thepreliminary data from the ongoing study (Abe, 2009) suggest, dif-ferent results may be obtained if students’ ratings are used. Thesefindings underscore the need to use multiple measures and infor-mants to assess a complex construct such as successful experien-tial learning.

Another avenue for extending the present study is examiningwhether introducing contemplative practices (Shapiro, Brown, &Biegel, 2007; Zajonc, 2006) such as mindfulness training at thebeginning of the semester would enhance students’ ability to affec-tively and cognitively process their practicum experiences. Thefindings pertaining to ‘‘insight” words indicate that cognitive pro-cessing that takes place earlier rather than later in the internship ismore likely to translate into outstanding performance. If future re-search reveals that such interventions, in fact, enhance students’ability to process their practicum experiences and contribute tosuccessful experiential learning, it may be incumbent on facultysupervisors to incorporate opportunities to foster contemplativeskills into the curriculum.

In summary, this study demonstrated the fruitfulness of usingword count strategies developed by expressive writing researchersto shed light on some of the processes involved in successful expe-riential learning. Further research on expressive writing and expe-riential learning promises to have important theoreticalimplications for both fields of study as well as practical applica-tions for faculty supervisors.

Acknowledgments

This study was supported in part by a CSU Research Grant. Theauthor would like to thank Katherine K. Abe for helpful commentson this article.

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