Data Mining Reveals the Emotional Differences In Emails From Men and Women

KentuckyFC writes "Sentiment analysis relies on vast databases of common words which are marked as positive, negative or neutral and associated with one of the eight fundamental emotions: joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, discuss, anger and anticipation. It is then a straightforward matter to search Tweets, novels and even fairy tales to see what emotions appear. Now, researchers have carried out the first large-scale study of sentiment in workplace emails. They examined the emotions associated with words in over 30,000 emails and analyzed the emotional differences between messages sent by men and women. It turns out that women use more cheerful words in emails than men, that men use more fear words, especially when communicating with other men, and that both men and women are far more likely to use anticipation words when emailing a member of the opposite sex. The same researchers say they are developing a Google app that will allow users to track their own emotions towards the people they correspond with in Gmail. And they plan to make a public call for volunteers willing to share their data for research purposes."

Other findings

[TWiTfan]

1) Men's emails are 90% more likely to include the word "balls" than women's.
2) Men are 74% less likely to ever email someone a link to an Oprah Magazine story.
3) No man has ever used the phrase "K, Luv Ya!" in an email, ever.

Fascinating!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fascinating!

Let's try the same thing with song lyrics:

Mama Cass:

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"
Birds singing in the sycamore tree
Dream a little dream of me
Say "Night-ie night" and kiss me
Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me
While I'm alone and blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me
Stars fading but I linger on, dear
Still craving your kiss
I'm longing to linger till dawn, dear
Just saying this
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
But in your dreams whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me

And DJ Assault:

(2x)
Ass, titties, ass 'n titties
Ass ass titties titties, ass 'n titties

(2x)
Big booty bitches thats where it gets
Come on, hoe, let's go to the easy rest
When I see ass, titties, ass 'n titties
Ass, ass, titties, titties, ass 'n titties.

(4x)
Ass, ass, ass, ass

(2x)
If you a light-skinned bitch that think you the shit,
I can buy you, hoe, 'cause bitch I'm rich.
I see broke-ass hoes, broke-ass hoes,
Broke-ass hoes, broke-ass hoes.

(4x)
Hoes, hoes, hoes, hoes

(2x)
If you a freaky-dancin' ho, keep shakin' that shit
Let's see how you shake it on top of my dick
And you'll say "Assault, I'm cuming. Assault, I'm cuming.
"Assault, I'm cuming. Assault, I'm cuming."

(4x)
Cumin', Cumin', Cumin', Cumin'

(2x)
Stankin ass bitches that need to wash up
Dont get mad when i dont want to fuck
You need soap and water, soap and water
Soap and water, Soap and Water

(4x)
Water, Water, Water, Water

The difference is subtle, but in my opinion quite discernible.

That's sexist!

[pla]

Males and females have absolutely no difference between them, despite the overwhelming experiential, physiological, neurological, anatomical, and hormonal evidence to the contrary, you sexist pigs, and how dare you even conduct this research into the issue!

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go open a jar of mayo for the little lady, though that in no way suggests she lacks the wrist and forearm strength to grasp and twist just as well as any man.

Browser history is even more revealing

[Krishnoid]

Even the most basic data mining can reveal a lot about your hopes and dreams [theonion.com].

Re:Other findings

[bondsbw]

In other news, today we found out that at least 0.00007% of Slashdot users believe that discussion comments are email.