Researchers are increasingly using language to study emotion, yet we know little about how language measures relate to other measures often used to study emotion, such as self-report, observer report, facial cues, and vocal cues. My work finds that language measures (in particular, language measures of valence) are correlated with a range of other measures used to study emotion and may therefore be a useful option when other measures are unavailable or impractical for a given research question.

In ongoing research, I am also examining whether language can help us manage other people's emotions when others turn to us for emotional support. Specifically, this work finds that individuals' use of 1st person pronouns (e.g., "I've been there before") and 2nd person pronouns (e.g., "It sounds like you are going through a lot") relate to the other person's perceptions that their emotions improved and that the support provider was responsive and trustworthy.