Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA.
Nat Hum Behav. 2021 Apr;5(4):458-466. doi: 10.1038/s41562-021-01050-7. Epub 2021 Feb 11.
Depression is a leading cause of disability worldwide, but is often underdiagnosed and undertreated. Cognitive behavioural therapy holds that individuals with depression exhibit distorted modes of thinking, that is, cognitive distortions, that can negatively affect their emotions and motivation. Here, we show that the language of individuals with a self-reported diagnosis of depression on social media is characterized by higher levels of distorted thinking compared with a random sample. This effect is specific to the distorted nature of the expression and cannot be explained by the presence of specific topics, sentiment or first-person pronouns. This study identifies online language patterns that are indicative of depression-related distorted thinking. We caution that any future applications of this research should carefully consider ethical and data privacy issues.
抑郁症是全球范围内导致残疾的主要原因，但往往被诊断不足和治疗不足。认知行为疗法认为，患有抑郁症的个体表现出扭曲的思维模式，即认知扭曲，这会对他们的情绪和动机产生负面影响。在这里，我们表明，在社交媒体上自我报告患有抑郁症的个体的语言特征是，与随机样本相比，他们的思维更为扭曲。这种影响是表达扭曲的特异性，不能用特定主题、情绪或第一人称代词的存在来解释。这项研究确定了在线语言模式，这些模式表明与抑郁相关的思维扭曲。我们警告说，未来对这项研究的任何应用都应仔细考虑伦理和数据隐私问题。
