This time, a completely different approach was used in data collection, which differs from traditionally accepted research methods in psychology and linguistics. Instead of raising direct questions to respondents, scientists have analyzed reports in social media, which are often saturated with details from the private life of users. And this despite the fact that such resources do not protect privacy and are open to everyone. According to scientists, social media is a powerful research tool that can not only supplement, but even replace expensive polls. In addition, such a method can give more accurate results.
Physorg
The first stage of the experiments was the analysis of the relationship of the level of income of the user and his expressions. In the UK, professions are divided into nine main classes. Knowing the approximate average level of income in each class, it remains to establish scientists what words and expressions are most often used by representatives of a particular category. An algorithm was developed for the statistical processing of the language, which confirmed previously established connections between our words, age and sex. The innovation was the establishment of a connection between words and income level.
The results showed that the richer are prone to publish intimidating stories and the use of angry expressions, more often discuss politics, financial news and corporations. At the same time, uncultured abusive statements most often indicate a low user income. Also, such users use social media only as a means of communication, while users with the highest level of income see the news distribution tool on Twitter and the ability to use it for professional purposes. In principle, all conclusions are logical and without large -scale research, but now it has been proven by scientists who may well claim the Shnobel Prize.
Source:
- Physorg.com