Using Linguistic Analysis to Identify High Performing Teams
Abstract
Effective military teams assess ever-changing situations, generate ideas to improve situations, and make decisions, often in threatening environments. Being able to identify teams that perform these tasks effectively would be beneficial for supervisors, trainers, and even group members. This paper examines the usefulness of linguistic analysis (specifically the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, LIWC) in identifying potential high performing teams. In a series of studies, distributed and face-to-face groups performed a number of different tasks. The transcripts of all communications among group members were submitted to the LIWC. Correlations were performed between group task performance and the use of many linguistic categories. Across many studies that included groups that differed in size, cohesion level, communication medium, and group membership, results indicated that linguistic analysis is useful in identifying high performing groups. For example, the more group members expressed negative emotions, talked about social processes, and used the present tense as they communicated with one another, the worse the group performed on several tasks. Implications for command-and-control are discussed.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA463318
Entities
People
- Linda G. Pierce
- Mary T. Dzindolet
Organizations
- Cameron University