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New Article Alert: A new study from the Grammar of Social Relations Lab, published in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology, investigates how the grammatical class of stimuli dynamically influences human behavior.
The article, “At the Speed of a Verb: Grammatical Class of Stimuli Affects Response Time in Surveys and Syntactic Classification Tasks” by Marta Witkowska and colleagues, demonstrates that grammar shapes cognitive processing not only through semantic meaning, but through the action-related associations embedded in grammatical form itself. Across four experiments conducted in Italian and Polish,…
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We are pleased to share a new article published by the Grammar of Social Relations Lab in Depression and Anxiety: “The Semantics of depression: How linguistic agency patterns signal depressive symptoms on social media.”
In this work, Marta Witkowska and colleagues examine whether subtle patterns of semantic agency in everyday language can reveal underlying psychological distress. Across two studies, the research team analyzed large-scale social media data from Twitter/X and Reddit, combining machine learning-based topic detection with established linguistic markers and expert coding. Their findings reveal that posts related…
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A new article is available to read: “Words without power: Reduced semantic (but not grammatical) agency signals low mood and self-esteem.”
Published in Journal of Affective Disorders, this article by Marta Beneda, Joachim Kowalski, and Marta Witkowska examines whether the language people use can reveal subtle signs of mood and self-related difficulties. Across two preregistered studies with 587 participants, the research shows that lower mood and lower self-esteem are associated with reduced use of semantic agency…
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BERTAgent: Quantifying Agency in Language
Agency — the capacity to set goals and act upon them—is a cornerstone of human cognition and social life. Until recently, researchers studying how agency is expressed in language relied mostly on dictionary word-count approaches. While simple, these methods often miss the nuance of context, polysemy, and the intensity or direction of agency. BERTAgent is our…
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New article – “Riot Like a Girl? Gender-Stereotypical Associations Boost Support for Feminist Online Campaigns”.
The article “Riot Like a Girl? Gender-Stereotypical Associations Boost Support for Feminist Online Campaigns” by Marta Witkowska, Marta Beneda, Jan Nikadon, Caterina Suitner, Bruno Gabriel Salvador Casara, and Magdalena Formanowicz has been published in Sex Roles: A Journal of Research. The findings across three studies suggest that online feminist campaigns are perceived differently in terms of…
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A new article is available to read. “Mobilize Is a Verb: The Use of Verbs and Concrete Language Is Associated With Authors’ and Readers’ Perceptions of a Text’s Action Orientation and Persuasiveness”.
“Mobilize Is a Verb: The Use of Verbs and Concrete Language Is Associated With Authors’ and Readers’ Perceptions of a Text’s Action Orientation and Persuasiveness” published by the Grammar of Social Relations Lab, in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, explores the effectiveness of linguistic strategies in mobilizing individuals to action. This multi-study research investigates how verbs…
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New article – “The Grammar of Persuasion: A Meta-Analytic Review Disconfirming the Role of Nouns as Linguistic Cues of Subsequent Behavior”.
The article “The Grammar of Persuasion: A Meta-Analytic Review Disconfirming the Role of Nouns as Linguistic Cues of Subsequent Behavior” by Marta Witkowska, Joanna Dołżycka, Caterina Suitner, and Magdalena Formanowicz has been published in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology. This research offers a critical examination of the assumption that nouns, as a linguistic…
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New Fabio Fasoli’s and Magdalena Formanowicz’s article
The article “Can Agentic Messages Help? Linguistic Strategies to Counteract Voice-Based Sexual Orientation Discrimination” published by Fabio Fasoli and Magdalena Formanowicz in the British Journal of Social Psychology explores the impact of agentic messaging in combating discrimination against gay and bisexual men based on the sound of their voice. It examines how expressing agency in messages can…
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