Sex Roles, Vol. 52, Nos.

7/8, April 2005 (

C 2005)

DOI: 10.1007/s11199-005-3711-0

The Language of Love: Sex, Sexual Orientation, and

Language Use in Online Personal Advertisements

Carla J. Groom1 and James W. Pennebaker1,2

Stereotypes and biological theories suggest that psychological gender differences found in
predominantly heterosexual samples are smaller or reversed among gay men and lesbians.
Computerized text analysis that compares people’s language style on a wide range of dimen-
sions from pronoun use to body references offers a multivariate personality marker to test
such assumptions. Analysis of over 1,500 internet personal advertisements placed by hetero-
sexual men, heterosexual women, gay men, and lesbians found little evidence that orientation
alters the impact of gender on linguistic behaviors. Previously reported gender differences
were replicated in the gay as well as the heterosexual advertisements studied. Main effects of
sexual orientation indicated that gay people of both sexes apparently felt less need to differ-
entiate themselves from potential mates than did heterosexual people. Virtually no crossover
sexual orientation by sex interactions emerged indicating that several popular models of sex-
ual orientation are not supported on a linguistic level.

KEY WORDS: homosexuality; sex differences; language; word use; text analysis.

Compare random samples of men and women
on a psychological or behavioral dimension, and
there is a good chance of finding a group difference.
Eagly (1995) noted that despite early attempts to
claim that gender differences are basically a figment
of the popular imagination, meta-analyses have re-
ported large effect sizes (>0.8 standard deviations)
for dimensions as diverse as mental rotation abil-
ity and facial expressiveness. Numerous studies have
demonstrated that gender stereotypes correspond
surprisingly well to actual group differences (e.g.,
Swim, 1994). However, popular stereotypes would
also have people believe that gender-typical charac-
teristics and sexual orientation are two sides of the
same coin. According to the stereotypes, if a woman
walks and talks more like a man than like the fem-
inine norm, she is probably a lesbian. Conversely, if
you know someone is a lesbian, you can reasonably
expect that she will walk and talk more like a man
1 University
of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas.
2 To whom correspondence should be addressed at Department
of Psychology, A8000, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas
78712; e-mail: Pennebaker@mail.utexas.edu.
than like her heterosexual sisters. Being a gay man
and being “effeminate” are similarly assumed to be
highly correlated.
On the largest psychological gender differ-
ence—the sex of preferred mates—the lay model is
true by definition. Gay men are like heterosexual
women in that they seek male partners, and lesbians
are like heterosexual men in that they seek female
partners. Whether the model can be appropriately
extrapolated to other behavioral and psychological
domains is an empirical question. Or rather, it is a
series of empirical questions with a large number
of possible outcomes. In principle, on any given
characteristic, gay men could resemble heterosexual
women, or heterosexual men, or lesbians, or could
be quite different from all three. Lesbians might
be similar to heterosexual men, or to heterosexual
women, or to gay men, or quite different from each.
The four groups might cluster in generally consistent
ways across a variety of characteristics, or they might
not. Stereotypes and many psychological researchers
have proposed theories that directly or indirectly
suggest that some configurations are more likely
than others.

447 0360-0025/05/0400-0447/0

C 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
448
A word here about terminology. The existence
of English homonyms, the ethical need to minimize
linguistic bias, and the conceptual ambiguity that sur-
rounds questions of gender and sexual orientation
pose challenges to researchers working in this gen-
eral area. Because we explore the interface between
chromosomal sex, sexual orientation, and gender-
typical behavior, and seek to test common assump-
tions that conflate the three into two concepts or even
one, linguistic clarity is essential. For the purposes of
the present paper, sex refers to chromosomal sex, and
gender-atypical refers to behaviors or characteristics
not normally associated with that person’s own sex
(cross-gender-typed will be used occasionally where
atypicality refers specifically to having the charac-
teristics of the other sex). Orientation refers to sex-
ual orientation. People who prefer sexual partners
of their own sex, including women, are referred to
by the adjective gay. The term homosexuality will
be used only where a counterpart is needed to the
noun heterosexuality. The four sex-orientation com-
binations (heterosexual men, heterosexual women,
gay men, and gay women) will be referred to as
mate-preference groups.
Unidimensional Models
The lay model can be thought of as a unidi-
mensional model in that for any sex-dimorphic
characteristic, individuals can be categorized accord-
ing to both sex typicality and orientation on a single
bipolar continuum. This could run from “masculine”
to “feminine,” with heterosexual men and heterosex-
ual women at the extremes. Gay men and lesbians
would fall somewhere in between, significantly dif-
ferent from the heterosexual members of their own
sex, and maybe even crossing over to the point where
they are indistinguishable from the heterosexual
members of the other sex. Money (1970) envisioned
a unipolar version of the continuum, beginning
at one end with mild deviance from normatively
gender-typical social roles, to homosexuality at the
midpoint, and transsexualism at the extreme. Both
contain echoes of Freud’s (1973/1905) “inversion
theory,” which explained homosexuality as part of a
package of gender-atypical behavior that arose from
failure to identify with the same-sex parent.
There is good evidence for an association be-
tween sexual orientation and behavioral gender-
typicality. For highly gender-typed characteristics,
gay men and lesbians both differ significantly from
Groom and Pennebaker
their gender norms, on average, and generally fall
somewhere in-between the two heterosexual groups.
A meta-analysis by Bailey and Zucker (1995) showed
that gay men and lesbians both recalled gender-
atypical childhood behaviors at rates higher than did
heterosexuals. Such atypicality included feeling more
like members of the other sex, preferring to play with
members of the other sex, and choosing activities as-
sociated with the other sex. Furthermore, mothers’
recollections tend to corroborate these reports (e.g.,
Bailey, Nothnagel, & Wolfe, 1995). Adults’ observa-
tions of their own gender typicality also vary with
orientation. Drawing on self-report data concerning
thoughts and emotions, Pillard (1991) concluded that
gay men and lesbians tend to fall between the modes
for heterosexual men and heterosexual women.
Other researchers have explored whether the as-
sociation extends beyond behavioral characteristics
that are visible “to the naked eye” to include low-
level psychological and physical characteristics. Find-
ings include male-typical patterns of spontaneous
sounds emitted by the inner ear in lesbians (sounds
generated by the outer hair cells in the cochlea in re-
sponse to noise stimulation; McFadden & Pasanen,
1999), and different patterns of handedness in gay
and heterosexual men (e.g., Lindesay, 1987, although
not replicated by Mustanski, Bailey, & Kaspar, 2002).
Evidence has been drawn not only from gay
samples that show reduced rates of gender-typical
characteristics, but also from samples selected for
biological abnormality that show an elevated rate of
homosexuality. Collear and Hines (1995) evaluated
the evidence for a biological theory of behavioral
gender differences in general. A key part of their
human evidence is comprised of observations that
when the developing fetus is exposed to abnormal
amounts of certain hormones, gender-typical be-
havior is affected alongside physical characteristics.
For example, girls exposed prenatally to excess
androgens or progestins either through a genetic
deficiency as in the case of congenital adrenal hyper-
plasia (CAH), or as a result of medication prescribed
to the mother appear relatively more likely to show
physical and psychological characteristics associated
with boys, compared to controls. Girls with CAH
show not only virilized genitalia at birth, but also
tend to show cross-sex play preferences, less secure
core sex identities, masculine profiles on personality
inventories, and an elevated rate of homosexuality
and bisexuality. Maternal progestin medication pro-
duces daughters with a similar pattern of masculin-
ization. Androgen-based maternal medication has
Language Use in Personals
the mildest effects, producing only an elevated rate
of homosexuality. The implication is that sexual ori-
entation is at least sometimes part of a biologically-
based package of sex-atypical characteristics.
Other researchers in this school such as Bailey,
Kim, Hills, and Linsenmeier (1997) are careful to
note that they are focusing on group means; they ac-
knowledge substantial within-group variability and
imply that inferences about individuals (i.e., stereo-
typing) are not necessarily warranted. However, such
evidence is frequently used to support theories that
maintain that having the same mate preferences as
the majority of members of the other sex is very
likely to be accompanied by other cross-gender-
typed characteristics. This underlying assumption is
shared even by researchers who do not espouse a
“gay gene” hypothesis. For example, Bem (1996) of-
fered what he called the “exotic becomes erotic”
theory (EBE). This proposes that sexual orientation
depends on which peer groups a person felt most dif-
ferent from as a child. For example, a gender-typical
girl who forms early friendships with other girls
will feel most different from gender-typical boys.
This difference is arousing, and this arousal becomes
transformed around puberty into sexual attraction.
For most people, therefore, heterosexual orientation
develops. However, for a boy with a gentle tempera-
ment that makes him particularly suited to feminine-
typical activities and peer groups, gender-typical
boys will become the object of arousal and attraction.
Conversely, girls with a particularly active temper-
ament will seek out masculine-typical activities and
friendships, and most likely come to develop lesbian
tendencies. The more atypical one is, at least as a
child, the more likely one is to be gay, and vice versa.
Socialization-Based Alternatives
to the Unidimensional Model
In socialization-based accounts of psychological
and behavioral gender differences, the relationship
between sex and orientation is much less direct than
in the case of biological theories. Even where gen-
der differences in the gay population are not ad-
dressed directly, predictions can be readily derived.
Generally speaking, socialization forces that man-
date gender-typical characteristics ought to apply to
gay as well as to heterosexual people.
Social role theory (e.g., Eagly, Wood, &
Diekman, 2000) traces behavioral and psychological
gender differences to societal norms that mold chil-
449
dren’s dispositions and skills so that they fit neatly
into either the domestic, childrearing role or the
breadwinner role. This division of labor originated
in women’s physical capacity to bear and nurse chil-
dren, but social norms ensure that women and men
also develop different psychological dispositions and
skills. Just as contemporary girls are socialized to be
nurturant even if they aim to be trial lawyers without
children, so lesbians and gay men should not be im-
mune to socialization just because they will not be as-
suming the traditional sexual division of labor found
in the nuclear family. However, the theory would be
compatible with a weak form of the unidimensional
model, because the forces driving the sexes apart psy-
chologically (e.g., role-differentiation following mar-
riage and childbirth) may be weaker among gay men
and women.
Status-based accounts of gender differences
(e.g., Ridgeway & Smith-Lovin, 1999) presume that
behavioral gender differences derive from people’s
tendency to behave in accordance with their expec-
tations about status (their own social status and that
of others) in a world where sex is a powerful status
cue. Indeed, Ridgeway and Smith-Lovin argued that
many behavioral gender differences weaken or van-
ish in same-sex situations. Because gay people are
deemed inferior by broader societal norms, such the-
ories imply that (openly) gay people will suffer from
low status in the same way as women in general do,
with lesbians most likely at the bottom of the hierar-
chy because both their sex and their orientation are
low-status cues.
Performance-based social constructionist the-
ories (e.g., West & Zimmerman, 1991) argue that
gender differences arise not from enduring trait dif-
ferences or even roles, but from gender-appropriate
ways of conducting social interaction, or “doing
gender.” Society obliges people to make their sex
clear during interpersonal interactions, and a deviant
orientation does not exempt one from being heav-
ily pressured to display gender-typical behaviors.
Furthermore, these displays double as signals of
heterosexuality. By employing emphatic behavioral
demonstrations of their sex, heterosexuals are able
to ensure that interaction partners are in no doubt
as to whether this is a sexually-charged, cross-sex
interaction, or a platonically (perhaps competitively)
flavored same-sex interaction. West and Zimmerman
argued that lesbians and gay men use gender displays
as camouflage, and they have the option of not per-
forming these displays and thus being recognized as
gay (less clear is what form the alternative behavior
450
might take, because cross-gender-typed behavior
is not the only option). Such rejection of hetero-
sexuality is, of course, not without its social costs.
However, this theory does imply that “un-closeted”
interactions between gay people of the same sex fall
outside of society’s schema. Whereas gender-based
differentiation is central to heterosexual interactions,
gay men and lesbians may choose to structure their
interactions around asymmetrical displays of gender-
typical characteristics (e.g., butch/femme role distinc-
tions in some lesbian relationships), or they may not.
In summary, social role theory emphasizes the
ability of society to perpetuate gender differences
regardless of underlying individual differences. The
difference between men and women should be
paramount. Other theories tie sex-dimorphic behav-
ior to gender differences in status. The low status of
homosexuality, at least when it is out of the closet,
should promote overall differences between gays and
heterosexuals, in addition to the continuing impact
of sex-based cues on men and women. A third class
of theories argue for the active role of the indi-
vidual in creating gender differences, and the role
of heterosexuality in motivating emphatic displays
of gender difference. Gender differences are likely
to persist even among gay people because gender-
typical characteristics serve a protective function,
but to the extent that gay people choose to identify
themselves as gay, the gender differences might be
weakened.
Language as a Multivariate Personality Marker
The question of how the four sexual-orientation
groups cluster in general on psychological and behav-
ioral dimensions is a multivariate issue. The best an-
swer is likely to come from a simultaneous compari-
son of members of the four mate-preference groups
on a whole range of dispositional variables, from
explicit interests and concerns to implicit tenden-
cies to think or do things in a particular way. The
study of language use as a personality marker (e.g.,
Groom & Pennebaker, 2002; Pennebaker, Mehl, &
Niederhoffer, 2003) may offer a fresh strategy for ad-
dressing this challenge.
Producing natural language in the form of writ-
ing or speech involves many choices: what to talk
about, and what words, phrase forms, and sentence
structures to use in talking about it. For example,
people can discuss their families using references to
social roles (e.g., brother, father), or proper nouns
(e.g., Tom, Sue), or first person pronouns (e.g., we,
Groom and Pennebaker
us), or third person pronouns in the singular form
(e.g., he, she), or even the collective form (e.g., they,
their). All these options achieve the semantic goal of
referring to the speaker’s kin, but they imply quite
different qualities of relationship.
Technological innovations have made it much
easier to detect linguistic correlates of individual dif-
ferences. Unlike human coders, a computer program
can analyze a virtually unlimited number of texts
on a very wide range of linguistic dimensions, and
code them consistently and rapidly. One such pro-
gram is Linguistic Analysis and Word Count (LIWC;
Pennebaker, Francis, & Booth, 2001). LIWC calcu-
lates the proportion of words in a given text sample—
either written language or transcribed speech—that
fit into one of its 70+ word categories. The cate-
gories cover linguistic dimensions such as pronouns
and articles, psychological processes (e.g., emotions,
thoughts), social processes (e.g., friendship refer-
ences), words used to communicate temporal or spa-
tial context (e.g., past tense verbs), and words that
describe the explicit topic under discussion (e.g.,
money, sex). Raters were used to help determine
which words belonged in which categories, allowing
an element of human qualitative judgment to be in-
corporated into an otherwise automated procedure.
The breadth of the categories makes LIWC a
potent inductive tool. Researchers who have used
the program have discovered linguistic markers for
distinguishing between poets who did and did not
commit suicide (Stirman & Pennebaker, 2001), be-
tween people of different ages (Pennebaker & Stone,
2003), between people who are lying and people who
are telling the truth (Newman, Pennebaker, Berry,
& Richards, 2003), and other individual differences
(Pennebaker & King, 1999).
Most relevant to the present research is a re-
cent study of the language of more than 11,000 men
and women speaking or writing across a broad va-
riety of contexts from student essays to transcribed
talk shows to classic novels (Newman, Groom, Stone,
& Pennebaker, 2005). A surprisingly high number
of gender differences were found in the ways peo-
ple wrote and talked. In univariate analyses, women
were found to make more references than men
to psychological processes, social processes (espe-
cially pronouns), motion, and the home. Women
also used more negations (e.g., no, never) and past
and present tense verbs. Men used longer sentences,
longer words, and swore more often. Men also pre-
dominated in the use of words related to object
properties (articles, prepositions, numbers), and in
Language Use in Personals
discussion of current concerns (e.g., money, occupa-
tion, metaphysical topics, sports).
A similar LIWC study by Brownlow,
Rosamond, and Parker (2003) using a sample of tran-
scribed television interviews found that women used
more social words and pronouns, whereas men used
more articles, unique words (i.e., a greater variety of
words as a proportion of total words) and long words
(at least six letters). These findings using the LIWC
program fit well with findings reported by Koppel,
Argamon, and Shimoni (2002). These authors ap-
proached computerized text analysis from a different
angle, using a program that established inductively
the linguistic features that best distinguished texts
written by men from those written by women. The
program was able to categorize samples by gender
with about 80% accuracy. Features that predicted
male authorship included a, the, and one, consistent
with the findings for articles and numbers in the
LIWC study. Consistent with the LIWC results for
pronouns and negations, features that predicted fe-
male authorship included she and not. However, cer-
tain prepositions (for, with, and) actually predicted
female authorship, in contrast to the LIWC data.
The LIWC results are also compatible with more
qualitative observations of the differences between
men’s and women’s language (e.g., Tannen, 1990).
It is reasonable to assume that the vast major-
ity of the men and women studied were heterosex-
ual. Thus, a comparison of text samples from all
four mate-preference groups would be a way to ex-
amine the predictions of the unidimensional mod-
els from several angles to address several questions.
First, would a multivariate effect be found for sex,
as in the earlier study, and would it be accompa-
nied by effects for orientation and the sex by orienta-
tion interaction? Second, how would these predictor
variables impact individual LIWC categories? Third,
when the full array of LIWC categories is used to
predict mate-preference group membership, which
groups would prove to be most easily distinguished
from each other, and which the most easily confused?
THE PRESENT STUDY
Using Personal Ads as Language Samples
In the present research we examined the lin-
guistic style of the four mate-preference groups by
studying the language used in internet personal ads.
Personals have been used repeatedly in previous
451
psychological work, hailed as a window into both so-
ciety and individuals (e.g., Parekh & Bersesin, 2001).
The advertisements provide a unique way of learning
about the lives of individuals who would never come
into a lab. The norms for personals add a structure
that makes them easier to compare than would be
the case for less structured media, such as weblogs.
The most popular research use has been qualitative
coding of advertisement content in order to better
understand mate-selection strategies (e.g., Cicerello
& Sheeham, 1995; Hatala & Prehodka, 1996). The
general findings have been that women emphasize
psychological characteristics (e.g. Deaux & Randel,
1984), and lesbians in particular devote very little
attention to body shape or other physical features
(e.g., Epel, Spanakos, Kasl-Godley, & Brownell,
1996). In a study where fictitious ads were placed,
men responded more to looks, and women more
to success (Goode, 1996). Gay men were generally
more interested in sex and in the partner’s physical
attractiveness, as indicated, for example, by a request
for a photograph (e.g., Hatala & Prehodka, 1996).
Although there may still be stigma attached to
placing and responding to personals, work dating
back almost 10 years suggests that it is becoming an
increasingly popular way to meet people (Merskin
& Huberlie, 1996). Those who choose this route are
relatively well-educated and successful, but simply
feel disconnected from traditional ways of meeting
people, and generally report having had good ex-
periences with personals (Jason, Moritsugu, & De-
Palma, 1992). The internet has increased the appeal
of personals by minimizing or eliminating the cost
of placing an advertisement and ensuring anonymity
beyond an exchange of email addresses.
For the purposes of the present research, in-
ternet personals have several advantages. First, per-
sonals provide an unambiguous operational defini-
tion of sexual orientation, because the ads state both
the sex of the ad-poster and the sex of the desired
mate. Second, any strategies that gay people use to
conceal orientation should be minimized, and the
salience of their orientation in the process of writ-
ing the advertisement should maximize the chance
that any gender-atypical linguistic patterns should be
displayed. Third, personals provide access to a very
large community-based sample.
Overview and Predictions
The relationship between psychological gender
differences and sexual orientation is critical both
452
for our understanding of sex differences and of ori-
entation. Biological approaches and most laypeo-
ple generally hold that gender-atypicality in terms
of the sex of preferred mates correlates with gen-
der typicality in other psychological and behavioral
domains. Sex differences established in heterosexual
samples would be expected to be smaller or reversed
in gay populations. Socialization-based approaches
construe psychological gender differences as the
product of sociocultural prescription, and therefore
likely to be at least partly independent of individu-
als’ mate preferences. In the present study we sought
to establish how sex and orientation impacted behav-
ior in a particular domain: language. Language was
chosen as the marker of gender-typicality because it
is a domain in which gender differences have been
widely reported, because it provides a snapshot of
naturally occurring behavior, and because multiple
features of language can be assessed simultaneously
using computerized text analysis. Language samples
were obtained by collecting personal ads from a pop-
ular internet personals site. The resulting linguistic
profile of heterosexual men, heterosexual women,
gay men, and lesbians could potentially offer support
for unidimensional theories, socialization-based the-
ories, or point toward alternative conceptions of the
sex-orientation intersection.
Predictions Based on Alternatives
to the Unidimensional Approach
The unidimensional approach to sex and orien-
tation would predict that the linguistic gender differ-
ences observed for heterosexuals would be smaller
or reversed in the language of gay men and women.
In other words, there should be a large multivari-
ate effect of the orientation by sex interaction, pos-
sibly accompanied by a sizeable main effect of sex,
with little or no main effect of orientation. These
multivariate results should translate into discovery
of many univariate crossover interactions between
orientation and sex when each linguistic dimension
is considered separately, possibly accompanied by
main effects of sex, with few main effects of orien-
tation. For example, gay men should use fewer arti-
cles and more present tense verbs than heterosexual
men, whereas lesbians should use more articles and
fewer present tense verbs than heterosexual women.
Finally, if scores on all the linguistic variables were
used to predict mate-preference group membership,
errors should reflect a configuration of the groups
Groom and Pennebaker
that places heterosexual men and women far apart,
with gay men and lesbians somewhere in between.
Thus, gay men should more often be misassigned to
the heterosexual woman category than should het-
erosexual men. Lesbians should more often be misas-
signed to the heterosexual man category than should
heterosexual women. In addition, gay men and les-
bians should be more easily confused with each other
than should heterosexual men and women.
Predictions Based on Socialization Approaches
Socialization-based theories of gender differ-
ences, particularly role theory, would predict a main
effect of sex to be the most prominent determinant of
linguistic style. However, many of these approaches
would be compatible with a small interaction effect in
the same direction as the biological theories predict,
because the forces driving the sexes apart psycho-
logically may be just a little weaker among gay men
and lesbians. In the case of status-based accounts,
the fact that gay personals are a type of same-sex
interaction should weaken sex differences, although
there may also be a main effect for orientation such
that being gay and being female push behavior in the
same direction (e.g., more self-references).
METHOD
Search Protocol
The internet site chosen for the study was
AOL’s Match.com. This particular site boasts over
three million members and has a detailed question-
naire, which provided us with extensive standardized
information about each member. People who post
personal ads supply demographic and physical infor-
mation, an optional personality questionnaire, and
two narratives, one that primarily describes them-
selves, and one that describes their ideal match. Po-
tential responders can access all of this information
by selecting the sex and age of the partner they seek,
their own sex, and a variety of other optional crite-
ria. Table I provides an example of the information
contained in a typical ad.
For the purposes of this study, the Match.com
database was searched to obtain 400 ads from
each of four mate-preference groups, approximately
matched on age. Because we were using the same
search mechanism as a person seeking a mate, the
procedure was counterintuitive. For example, in
Language Use in Personals
Table I. Basic Information Contained in a Typical Personal
Advertisement Retrieved From Match.com
Responses to
multiple-choice questions Narratives
20 years old (Self) I am fun loving, friendly,
Austin, Texas crazy, wild, enjoyable, and
Blonde hair, blue eyes, 5 9 love men. Very curious
Average body type about others, I’m not nosy, I
English speaker just like to hear what you
Religion: Other tell me, as long as it’s the
High school education truth. I recently moved back
Works in sales & marketing to Austin and am looking
Earns less than $24,000/year for new ways to have fun.
Smokes socially (Seeking) Talk, dark, and
Drinks socially/occasionally looking for me. Likes to
Divorced have fun but knows the time
Has children living at home and the place for
everything. Responsible for
doing the right thing but
also knows how to laugh.
order to obtain personals posted by heterosexual
men, we selected “I am a woman seeking a man”
from the four mate search options, along with a
minimum and maximum age, with the further stip-
ulation that searches were restricted to the United
States. We defined nine age ranges from which equal
numbers of advertisements from each of the four
groups would be selected, ensuring approximate age-
matching of the mate-preference groups. The first
eight age groups each spanned 4 years (18–21, 22–
25, 26–29, 30–33, 34–37, 38–41, 42–45, 46–49), but
because the number of ads dropped so dramatically
after age 50, especially in the lesbian category, we
defined the last category as 50–59. The four gender
combinations and nine age ranges yielded 36 cells.
Advertisements were selected within each cat-
egory, copied, and pasted into a spreadsheet in the
order in which they appeared, which itself depended
on how recently the ad-posters had adjusted their
profiles. All ads were read, and they were excluded
if it was obvious that they had been placed in the
wrong orientation category (e.g., an ad appeared in
a female-to-female search that referred to seeking “a
man who knows how to treat a lady”). This exclusion
criterion was used sparingly, and only if there was
explicit reference to the wrong sex or a photo that
clearly depicted someone of the wrong sex. A hand-
ful of advertisements were excluded on the grounds
that they were obviously jokes. Each excluded ad
was replaced with approximately one additional ad in
that search category. In the final sample, there were
41–47 ads per cell, 1,586 in total, distributed evenly
across the four mate preference groups (395 hetero-
453
sexual men, 394 heterosexual women, 395 gay men,
and 402 lesbians).
For the purposes of analyzing writing style, the
two narratives (i.e., describe self and describe ideal
match) were combined into a single text file. This
maximized the reliability of estimates of writing style,
with an average of 170.77 total words per participant
(SD = 103.05; range = 32–731). Finally, each partic-
ipant’s text sample was run through a spell-checker
and an additional macro program designed to re-
move certain common abbreviations that would be
misinterpreted by LIWC. For example, w/ was con-
verted to with.
Customizing the Text Analysis
The default LIWC dictionary codes each text file
on 74 language dimensions. In the interests of min-
imizing the number of analyses performed, we ex-
cluded categories that were unique to conversation
(e.g., nonfluencies such as hmm) or highly redundant
with another category. The category friends was ex-
cluded because it was essentially uninterpretable in
the context of personal ads, mixing terms such as
boyfriend and girlfriend with platonic terms such as
roommate and buddy. We also added a new pro-
noun subcategory: third person singular (e.g., him,
her, his). This allowed us to explore whether gay men
and lesbians would be less likely than their hetero-
sexual counterparts to use gender-specific singular
pronouns. Each cleaned text sample was analyzed us-
ing the modified LIWC program, which counted the
number of times that words from each category ap-
peared in the advertisement, and calculated this as a
proportion of all the words in the advertisement. The
grand means for each measure revealed that 22 word
categories had extremely low base rates (<0.5%).
These included most categories with negative conno-
tations (e.g., death, anger, swear words), along with
several other narrow categories such as eating and
music. Such low base rates indicated that these cat-
egories were not relevant to an analysis of personal
ads, and these categories were dropped from further
inferential analyses. Analyses were performed on the
remaining 44 categories.
RESULTS
Overall, LIWC recognized an average of 80.5%
of the words in each text sample (SD = 5.79). An
454
alpha level of .01 was used for all analyses to take
into account the large sample size and large number
of analyses conducted.
Multivariate Analyses
A MANOVA was performed on the remain-
ing 44 LIWC categories, with sex (male vs. fe-
male) and sexual orientation (heterosexual vs. gay)
as the two dichotomous predictor variables. All
three effects were significant: for the main effect of
sex, F (45, 1538) = 3.70, p < .001; for the main ef-
fect of orientation, F (45, 1538) = 5.57, p < .001. The
interaction effect was smaller, but still significant,
F (45, 1538) = 1.94, p < .001.
Univariate Analyses
Table II summarizes the main effects from the
univariate analyses of each individual LIWC dimen-
sion. The organization of the word categories is based
on the way that LIWC was originally constructed.
Word categories are divided into five broad dimen-
sions: (1) linguistic properties, (2) social processes,
(3) psychological processes, (4) temporal and spa-
tial context, and (5) current concerns that are almost
always used as literal content words. A total of 10
effects were found for sex, and 10 were found for
orientation.
Main Effects of Sex
Table III presents the main effects of sex and
sexual orientation in more detail. Generally speak-
ing, the results replicate many of the gender differ-
ences reported in previous work (Newman et al.,
2004). Even with a sample that contained 50% gay
participants, it was still the case that women were
more likely to use pronouns, especially first per-
son singular, discuss emotions, and use present tense
verbs. Also as before, men used more articles and
made more references to their jobs. Women were
also more likely to use the newly-created category
of third person singular. Some findings for categories
that yielded null results in previous research indi-
cate the influence of the personal ad context. Specif-
ically, women’s personal ads contained more refer-
ences to physical and sexual issues than did men’s. In
other words, women’s personal advertisements con-
Groom and Pennebaker
tained higher proportions of words falling into the
psychological categories of physical words and sex-
uality words (a subset of physical words) than did
men’s advertisements. Even when the analysis was
restricted to the 797 gay personals, the pattern of ef-
fects was virtually unchanged, even maintaining the
rigorous .01 alpha level. In these highly conservative
analyses, the only differences were that effects fell
below significance for articles, third person singular,
and long words, and two new effects reached signifi-
cance (actually consistent with previous research but
not significant in the personals sample as a whole):
the tendency of women to use more spatial words and
fewer long words.
Main Effects of Orientation
With respect to orientation, a striking effect
was that heterosexuals were more prolific users of
pronouns all round, including first-person singular
as well as third-person singular. Heterosexuals also
wrote longer ads (on average, 36 words longer) than
did gays. Heterosexuals were more likely than gays
to mention occupation-related topics, whereas gay
people predominated in the use of sexual and body
words. These effects persisted even when the sex-
ual category was modified to exclude explicitly gay-
related words (e.g., gay, bi), and the body category
was modified to remove the terms AIDS, HIV, and
disease. A potentially related finding was that gay
people used more words from the “seeing” cate-
gory, which incorporates phrases such as “straight
looking” or “feminine looking.”
Sex by Orientation Interactions
The 10 effects of sex and 10 effects of orienta-
tion were qualified by just five significant interactions
between sex and orientation. Furthermore, the in-
teractions that did occur were not of the crossover
form that unidimensional models would predict, and
the effects were not consistent with any of the a pri-
ori models. Instead, the effects reflected situations
where one group, generally the lesbians, was the
“odd one out.” The effect of orientation on word
count appeared to be driven by a tendency of les-
bians to write particularly short ads, and heterosex-
ual women to write particularly long ads; men of both
orientations fell in between. Lesbians also used the
shortest words, but this time the contrast was greatest
Language Use in Personals 455

Table II. Univariate Effects of Sex and Orientation on Word Category Usage
LIWC Dimension Examples Effect of sex (d) Effect of orientation (d) Interaction effect (eta2 )
Linguistic dimensions
Word count −.06 .35∗∗ .012∗∗
Words per sentence −.01 −.06 .000
Question marks −.07 .02 .000
Words of > six letters .11 −.02 .005∗∗
Numbers .12 −.11 .000
Negations no, never, not .03 −.09 .000
Articles a, an, the .14∗∗ .13 .000
Prepositions on, to, from .07 .03 .001
Inclusive words with, and, include −.01 −.02 .000
Exclusive words but, except, without .09 .07 .000
Social processes
Social words −.11 −.10 .001
Communication talk, share, converse .01 −.03 .000
Humans boy, woman, group .13 −.07 .000
Pronouns −.23∗∗ .19∗∗ .000
1st person singular I, we, me −.18∗∗ .17∗∗ .000
1st person plural we, us, our .02 −.10 .000
2nd person you, you’re −.04 .09 .000
3rd person singular he, she, his −.13∗∗ .18∗∗ .000
Psychological processes
Emotions
Positive emotions happy, pretty, good −.23∗∗ .03 .000
Optimism certainty, pride, win .01 .11 .002
Positive feelings happy, joy −.29∗∗ .02 .003
Negative emotions afraid, hate, cry .00 .01 .002
Sensations .01 −.10 .002
Hearing heard, listen, sound −.03 .04 .003
Seeing view, saw, look .05 −.17∗∗ .000
Physical words −.16∗∗ −.32∗∗ .000
Sexuality lust, pregnant, gay −.32∗∗ −.26∗∗ .001
Body states ache, heart, cough .10 −.27∗∗∗ .006∗∗
Cognitive processes −.08 .05 .000
Insight think, know, −.02 .06 .001
Discrepancy should, would, could −.11 .01 .000
Tentative perhaps, guess .10 −.12 .002
Certainty always, never −.04 −.04 .000
Time and space
Time till, started, hour .01 .06 .000
Past tense verb walked, were, had .05 .11 .000
Present tense verb walk, is, be −.29∗∗ −.07 .007∗∗
Future tense verb will, might, shall −.06 −.06 .000
Space here, up, around .11 −.04 .003
Motion verbs walk, move, go −.11 .05 .000
Current concerns
Occupation .06 .28∗∗ .002
Job employ, boss, career .14∗∗ .09 .005∗∗
Achieve try, goal, win .07 .20∗∗ .001
Leisure −.02 .06 .002
Home house, kitchen, lawn .01 .06 .001
Sports football, play, game .04 .10 .004

Note. Effect sizes for main effects are based on Cohen’s d to show directionality and for interpretability. For effects of sex,
positive numbers indicate higher values for men than women. For effects of orientation, positive numbers indicate higher values
heterosexuals than gays. The appropriate index for interactions, eta2 , yields smaller numbers and is therefore reported to three
decimal places.
∗∗ p < .01.
456 Groom and Pennebaker

Table III. Means for Significant Effects of Sex and Orientation on Word Category Usage
Means for sex main effects
LIWC dimension Category Men Women
Linguistic Articles 6.03 5.74
Social Pronouns 11.22 12.06
1st person singular 7.15 7.68
3rd person singular .59 .73
Psychological Positive emotions 8.77 9.64
Positive feelings 2.91 3.48
Physical 2.12 2.40
Sexuality .98 1.38
Present tense 13.41 14.46
Current concerns Job .74 .62
Means for orientation main effects
Category Heterosexuals Gay men & lesbians
Linguistic Word count 188.79 152.93
Social Pronouns 11.99 11.29
1st person singular 7.67 7.17
3rd person singular .76 .56
Psychological Seeing 1.32 1.52
Physical 1.99 2.54
Sexuality 1.01 1.35
Body .50 .74
Current concerns Occupation 2.01 1.63
Achieve 1.00 .83
Means for sex × orientation interaction
Heterosexual Gay/Lesbian
Category Men Women Men Women
Linguistic Word count 174.24 203.39 160.95 145.05
Words of 6+ letters 15.72 15.88 16.57 15.22
Psychological Body 0.47 0.53 160.95 145.05
Time and space Present tense 13.60 14.02 16.57 15.22
Current concerns Job 0.72 0.72 0.85 0.62

with gay men, who had the largest proportion of long
words in their ads; both heterosexual groups fell in
the middle. Lesbians also used the most present tense
verbs; the tendency of women to use more present
tense verbs than men, as found overall and in pre-
vious research, was much larger when lesbians were
compared to gay men than it was when heterosex-
ual women and men were compared. Finally, lesbians
were much less likely than any of the other three
groups to use words from the job category. In the
case of one interaction, it was the gay men who stood
out as the most prolific users of body references.
Controlling for Socioeconomic Status
The strategy of selecting equal numbers of ad-
vertisements by age as well as by mate-preference
group ensured that the analyses of the raw data were
not substantially skewed by the effects of age, which
has been shown to affect individuals’ word usage
(Pennebaker & Stone, 2003). A second demographic
variable was a second potential source of bias: socioe-
conomic status. Because we were measuring use of
language, and because our sample was drawn from
the community rather than from a more education-
ally homogenous university population, it was impor-
tant to check for variations in education level among
the four gender combination groups. The finding of
an interaction effect on use of long words signaled a
possible socioeconomic bias such that gay men, the
most prolific users of long words, were also the best
educated, and lesbians, who used the fewest, were the
least educated.
Of the 1,586 participants, only 7.8% failed or
refused to report their educational level (1 = High
Language Use in Personals
Table IV. Percentage Classification Success of Discriminant Analysis Predicting Mate-Preference Group Based
on Linguistic Indicators
Actual group membership Heterosexual men
Heterosexual men 39.0
Heterosexual women 21.6
Gay men 19.5
Lesbians 16.7
school, 2 = Some college, 3 = Associates degree,
4 = bachelor’s degree, 5 = graduate degree, 6 =
PhD/Post Doctoral, 7 = Prefer not to say). An
ANOVA on the remaining responses revealed that
the men (M = 3.21, SD = 1.37) were better educated
than the women (M = 3.00, SD = 1.34), F (1, 1456) =
9.8, p < .01. The effect of orientation was not sig-
nificant. However, there was a very large sex by
orientation interaction, F (1, 1456) = 20.56, p < .01.
Post-hoc tests confirmed that lesbians (M = 2.79,
SD = 1.35) had indeed completed less education,
on average, than any of the other groups (Het-
erosexual men: M = 3.10, SD = 1.36; Heterosexual
women: M = 3.20, SD = 1.31; Gay men: M = 3.33,
SD = 1.37). Gay men were also educated to a signifi-
cantly higher level than were heterosexual men.
We repeated our analysis of the effects of sex
and orientation on language after controlling for ed-
ucation level (we replaced “Prefer not to say” re-
spondents with the group mean) and also for exact
age. The impact on the pattern of results was mini-
mal. All three multivariate effects were again signif-
icant (two main effects and an interaction). In terms
of univariate analyses, the interaction effect with re-
spect to long words fell below significance, as did the
interaction and main effects for job-related words,
which are also likely to be tied to education level.
There were only two other changes. First, men’s ten-
dency to use more numbers than women (men =
1.08, women = .92), as found in previous research,
was now significant, F (1, 1583) = 8.06, p < .01. Sec-
ond, men referred to the humans (a subcategory of
social words including boy, woman, and group) more
often than did women (men = 2.12, women = 1.91),
contrary to previous null results, F (1, 1583) = 7.57,
p < .01.
Classification Analysis
A stepwise discriminant analysis was computed
to predict membership of the four mate-preference
457
Predicted group membership
Heterosexual women Gay men Lesbians Total
25.6 18.7 16.7 100
47.2 14.5 16.8 100
15.7 44.6 20.3 100
20.9 19.2 43.3 100
groups based on individuals’ scores for the 44 linguis-
tic categories. The overall success rate was 42.3%,
which is substantially higher than the 25% hit rate
that would be expected by chance. As shown in Table
IV, the resulting functions successfully classified 39%
of heterosexual men, 47.2% of heterosexual women,
44.6% of gay men, and 43.3% of lesbians. Contrary to
stereotypes, gay men were least likely to be miscate-
gorized as heterosexual women, and vice versa. Sim-
ilarly, lesbians were least likely to be miscategorized
as heterosexual men, and vice versa. In fact, the most
common classification errors involved classifying het-
erosexual men as heterosexual women, and gay men
as heterosexual men or as lesbians.
DISCUSSION
By comparing the language used by heterosex-
ual men, heterosexual women, gay men, and les-
bians in over 1,500 personal ads, we were able to test
whether the four groups clustered in ways predicted
deductively by current lay and scientific thinking
about sex and orientation. In particular, we examined
whether psychological gender differences are weak-
ened or even reversed when the men and women
compared are gay rather than heterosexual. Lay
stereotypes and many biological theories would ex-
pect this to be the case, whereas socialization-based
gender theories would not necessarily make this
assumption.
The Effects of Sex and Sexual Orientation
on Language Use
Men’s vs. Women’s Language
Those who argue for main effects of sex can ar-
gue on the basis of these findings that psycholog-
ical/behavioral gender differences transcend differ-
ences in orientation. In addition to a multivariate
458
main effect of sex, many of the previous differences
identified between men’s language and women’s lan-
guage [especially in Newman et al.’s (2004) study]
were replicated, despite the fact that one-half of
the sample were gender-atypical at least to the ex-
tent of seeking romantic involvement with same-sex
partners. The general linguistic patterns were consis-
tent with Tannen’s (1990) distinction between men’s
“report” communication styles and women’s “rap-
port” communication styles, the former focused on
information exchange and the latter on fostering con-
nections with other people. As in previous research,
women displayed a robust tendency to use more ref-
erences to people, more emotion words, more first-
person singular pronouns, and more present tense
verbs. Men displayed a robust tendency to use more
articles, and more numbers (after SES was con-
trolled), both of which signal an interest in object
properties. Remarkably, the sex effects were almost
identical when the analyses included only gay people.
Gender differences also emerged on dimensions
related to sex and physical characteristics that had
yielded null results in previous research, which sug-
gests a special role for those words in the specific con-
text of personal ads. This is consistent with earlier
observations that heterosexual men tend to be less
explicit about sexual and physical topics in personal
ads, either because of taboo or because their desires
are taken for granted (Laner & Kamel, 1977).
The one inconsistency with previous gender dif-
ference work was that when SES was controlled for
in this study, men used abstract, indefinite references
to humans (e.g., man, woman) more than did women,
which is the opposite of the result reported by
Newman et al. (2004). In the context of personal ads,
it is not really possible for men to avoid social ref-
erences in the way that appears habitual for men in
other contexts. Indeed, it is interesting that men pre-
fer indefinite social references in contrast to women’s
preference for definite social references (e.g., he vs.
a man), which suggests perhaps that women have a
more elaborated vision of their ideal mate. This sug-
gestion would be consistent with earlier findings that
women tend to put more effort into the personals
process, whereas men tend to respond briefly and rel-
atively indiscriminately to many ads (Goode, 1996).
Heterosexuals’ vs. Gays’ Language
A multivariate main effect of sexual orientation
was also found, and univariate analyses revealed that
Groom and Pennebaker
significant orientation effects emerged on as many
occasions as gender differences had done (10 in each
case), and they emerged on many of the same dimen-
sions. Socialization-based theories offer a possible in-
terpretation for the particular orientation effects that
were found. Essentially, a fundamental difference in
the concerns that gay and heterosexual people have
when seeking a mate may well arise from the fact that
societal norms that regulate heterosexual courtship
do not apply, at least in the same way, in gay rela-
tionships.
First, heterosexual ads contained more refer-
ences to occupation, which is traditionally a key
issue in mate selection (e.g., Buss, 1989; Eagly &
Wood, 1999). In gay relationships, there is no a priori
assumption that one partner should contribute more
resources than the other, which renders occupation
a more optional topic for mention in a gay personal
ad. The role structure for heterosexual relationships
that Eagly focuses on (e.g., Eagly et al., 2000) may
be recreated in some form by gay couples and
subcultures, but it does not supply the same degree
of relationship predictability that heterosexual roles
do (e.g., the more masculine partner in a lesbian
relationship may have children). Perhaps even more
important, gay singles do not face the same a priori
status—and power—differentials that heterosexual
singles have to deal with. Consistent with a different
set of relationship priorities and taboos, gay people
in our study used more references to sex and body,
which apparently demonstrates a more up-front atti-
tude to relationships. Such results are also consistent
with earlier work that showed that heterosexual
ads focused more on long-term relationships and
financial security than did ads placed by gay people
(e.g., Gonzales & Meyers, 1993).
Second, heterosexual ads used pronouns that
emphasize differences between speaker and audi-
ence (for a discussion of pronoun choice and the
speaker–audience relationship, see Solomon, 1978).
In particular, heterosexuals used more first-person
singular and more third-person singular pronouns.
Use of such pronouns gives the impression that the
ad-poster was drawing a mental contrast between
“me” and “him” or “her.” This finding may point
toward a tendency for gay relationships to be more
fluid and focused more on similarity than on comple-
mentarity as desirable qualities, at least in the early
stages of courtship. West and Zimmerman’s (1991)
analysis is useful here in linking displays of gender-
typical characteristics with displays of heterosexual-
ity. Given that gay people who post personal ads are
Language Use in Personals
not trying to signal heterosexuality, emphatic demon-
strations of sex dimorphic behaviors are not rele-
vant to courtship in the way that they are for het-
erosexuals. In same-sex relationships, fundamental
differentiation in this sense is optional, and degree of
gender typicality is a matter of personal preference.
Indeed, as previous studies have shown (e.g., Bailey
et al., 1997; Phua, 2002), the current results suggest
that posters of gay personals tend to spell out their
own degree of typicality as well as that of their de-
sired partner. In particular, the “seeing” LIWC cat-
egory on which gays were higher than heterosexuals
includes “straight looking,” “feminine looking,” and
similar phrases that directly communicate gender-
typicality.
Effect of Sex by Orientation Interactions
The most startling finding was the complete ab-
sence of crossover interactions between sex and ori-
entation, as would be predicted by unidimensional
theories and stereotypes that group lesbians with
heterosexual men and gay men with heterosexual
women. In the raw data, a small multivariate inter-
action effect was found, but there were only one-half
as many significant interactions on a univariate level
as had been the case for sex and orientation. Even
the interactions that were observed did not conform
to a crossover pattern. Instead, it seemed that the
lesbian group was in some way qualitatively differ-
ent from the other three groups in terms of present
tense, word count, word length, and job concerns.
For example, heterosexual women used the most
words, followed by heterosexual men, gay men, and
lesbians. Further analyses established that there was
indeed something special about the lesbian group:
they were less educated than ad-posters from any of
the other three mate-preference groups. Controlling
for socioeconomic status eroded the collection of in-
teractions even further, eliminating effects for word
length and job words but leaving the vast majority of
the main effects unchanged.
Even theorists of gender or orientation who do
not adhere to such a unidimensional approach would
be surprised at the parallel quality of the effects of
sex and orientation. It undermines our very assump-
tion that orientation and gender-typicality are at least
related, to observe that sex has effects that apply to
the exact same extent in gays as they do in hetero-
sexuals, and that orientation has effects that apply to
the exact same extent in men as they do in women.
459
It is especially remarkable that as many as one-half
of the gender differences and orientation differences
fell along the same dimensions. Pronouns, body ref-
erences, and sexuality words were all subject to joint
influences of both factors. It was not simply the case
that sex effects swamped orientation in some cases,
and orientation trumped sex in others. Instead, they
had independent effects on the exact same linguistic
markers. Nor was it possible to try to draw sex and
orientation under a single banner such as status. If we
look specifically at the five dimensions on which par-
allel effects of sex and orientation were found, they
are split roughly evenly between effects where be-
ing female and being gay pull language in the same
direction (i.e., physical, sexuality) and effects where
they pull in opposite directions (i.e., pronouns, first-
person singular, third person singular).
Predicting Mate-Preference From Linguistic Style
Classification analyses dealt another blow to
unidimensional assumptions. Instead of finding gay
men to be more easily confused with heterosex-
ual women than were heterosexual men, the exact
reverse was the case. Gay men and heterosexual
women were the furthest apart of all the groups.
Lesbians and heterosexual men were closer together,
but still more likely to be confused with members of
their own sex.
Limitations and Future Directions
The results of the present study provide strong
evidence that, in terms of linguistic style, gay men
and lesbians who place personal ads on mainstream
internet sites show similar patterns of gender differ-
ences in language as do heterosexuals, which under-
mines assumptions based on theories and stereotypes
that predict general gender-atypical characteristics in
gay people. In addition, gay people’s ads suggested
some different overall motives and concerns than
are found in ads of their heterosexual counterparts.
These differences themselves may arise in part from
the irrelevance of courtship norms based on gen-
der differences. The present research underlies the
need for gender researchers to consider orientation,
rather than taking heterosexuality for granted. Simi-
larly, sexual orientation researchers need to consider
the implications of gender differentiation for mat-
ing strategies among heterosexual and gay people, as
460
well as the relevance of traditional gender difference
research for this population.
There remains the possibility that the people
who placed the ads we studied were not represen-
tative. In particular, gay advertisers on Match.com
may be qualitatively different from people who post
on gay-oriented websites, or who seek mates in more
face-to-face gay community contexts. There is evi-
dence that ads in specifically gay newspapers differ
from those in more mainstream personals outlets.
For example, advertisers in gay newspapers are less
likely to talk about being/seeking a “straight acting”
guy (Phua, 2002). Even if the advertisements we stud-
ied were technically representative, it may well be
the case that previous researchers who recruited par-
ticipants at gay pride events or asked people to come
into a psychology lab were studying a different, less
closeted, more experienced, and highly-identified
members of the gay community, which may explain
the conflicting findings. It would also be helpful
to compare the writing styles of people who rate
themselves as relatively gender-typical or atypical.
It might also be argued that people’s writing
style in personal ads is not a perfect indicator of
personality because of the high self-presentational
concerns involved and the possibility that advertisers
adjust their language to complement or match the
perceived style of readers. Previous studies have
indeed shown that, for example, women tend to offer
instrumental traits and men tend to offer expressive
traits, in direct contrast to the more general gender
differences found in instrumental and expressive
characteristics (e.g., Cicerello & Sheehan, 1995).
However, the close correspondence between the
gender differences observed in the present study and
those reported across a wide range of contexts in
previous work testify to the representative quality
of personal ads. Previous studies have often been
skewed toward dimensions with strong gender or
orientation stereotypic differences, such as interest
in fashion or childhood play with dolls. In contrast,
in the present study we took full advantage of new
text analysis technology to obtain a broad snapshot
of linguistic behavior from self-reference habits to
interest in psychological characteristics. From this
broad snapshot, sizeable and systematic differences
did emerge, but they point strongly toward an in-
fluence of gender and of orientation and away from
notions that gay men “are like” straight women, and
lesbians men “are like” straight men.
The study of language as a marker of psycholog-
ical state is a relatively new research strategy. With
Groom and Pennebaker
computerized techniques that allow a very large sam-
ple of texts to be analyzed virtually instantaneously,
linguistic approaches offer the possibility of a fresh
perspective on long-standing questions of individ-
ual difference. Text analysis programs operate with-
out regard to traditional theories about a particu-
lar domain. In the case of the current study, this
naturalistic, behavioral, multivariate index paints a
startling, yet coherent picture of gender and sexual
orientation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Preparation of this paper was aided by a grant
from the National Institutes of Health (MH52391).
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