TY - JOUR
T1 - Modeling Linguistic (A)Synchrony: A Case Study of Therapist–Client Interaction
AU - Tay, Dennis Zhiming
AU - Qiu, Han
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is supported by a Faculty Reserve Grant (ZVY8) of the Faculty of Humanities, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 Tay and Qiu.
PY - 2022/5/23
Y1 - 2022/5/23
N2 - Interpersonal synchrony is the alignment of responses between social interactants, and is linked to positive outcomes including cooperative behavior, affiliation, and compassion in different social contexts. Language is noted as a key aspect of interpersonal synchrony, but different strands of existing work on linguistic (a)synchrony tends to be methodologically polarized. We introduce a more complementary approach to model linguistic (a)synchrony that is applicable across different interactional contexts, using psychotherapy talk as a case study. We define linguistic synchrony as similarity between linguistic choices that reflect therapists and clients’ socio-psychological stances. Our approach involves (i) computing linguistic variables per session, (ii) k-means cluster analysis to derive a global synchrony measure per dyad, and (iii) qualitative analysis of sample extracts from each dyad. This is demonstrated on sample dyads from psychoanalysis, cognitive-behavioral, and humanistic therapy. The resulting synchrony measures reflect the general philosophy of these therapy types, while further qualitative analyses reveal how (a)synchrony is contextually co-constructed. Our approach provides a systematic and replicable tool for research and self-reflection in psychotherapy and other types of purposive dialogic interaction, on more representative and limited datasets alike.
AB - Interpersonal synchrony is the alignment of responses between social interactants, and is linked to positive outcomes including cooperative behavior, affiliation, and compassion in different social contexts. Language is noted as a key aspect of interpersonal synchrony, but different strands of existing work on linguistic (a)synchrony tends to be methodologically polarized. We introduce a more complementary approach to model linguistic (a)synchrony that is applicable across different interactional contexts, using psychotherapy talk as a case study. We define linguistic synchrony as similarity between linguistic choices that reflect therapists and clients’ socio-psychological stances. Our approach involves (i) computing linguistic variables per session, (ii) k-means cluster analysis to derive a global synchrony measure per dyad, and (iii) qualitative analysis of sample extracts from each dyad. This is demonstrated on sample dyads from psychoanalysis, cognitive-behavioral, and humanistic therapy. The resulting synchrony measures reflect the general philosophy of these therapy types, while further qualitative analyses reveal how (a)synchrony is contextually co-constructed. Our approach provides a systematic and replicable tool for research and self-reflection in psychotherapy and other types of purposive dialogic interaction, on more representative and limited datasets alike.
KW - LIWC
KW - cluster analysis
KW - linguistic synchrony
KW - psychotherapy talk
KW - synchrony measure
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85131788208&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.903227
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.903227
M3 - Journal article
SN - 1664-1078
VL - 13
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
M1 - 903227
ER -