A recent study carried out by experts in applied mathematics from the University of Vermont (USA) and published in the journalPLoS ONEhas analyzed the most used words in the newspaperNew York Times, in the microblogging platform Twitter, in the books archived in Google Books (with some titles dating back to 1520) and in the lyrics of the songs that have been heard the most during the last half century. And, after selecting the 5,000 most frequent terms in each case, they have concluded thatpositive words that refer to happiness predominate in the vocabulary compared to negative and / or sad words.
“Language is social”, explains Peter Dodds, co-author of the work. In contrast to traditional economic theory, which suggests that people are “inherently and rationally selfish”, the latest studies in social science and neuroscience provide data indicating that mainlywe are “a pro-social species that tells stories”, clarifies Dodds. Since language has been evolving for thousands of years, positive words are more widespread and deeply ingrained in our communication than negative ones. “We know that to maintain social ties it is better to be positive”, concludes the researcher.
Their findings support the so-called“Pollyanna Principle”-in honor of a child heroine protagonist of a 1913 novel, with an optimistic and smiling character-, or positive bias, which refers to thehumanity’s tendency to process pleasant information more efficiently than unpleasant.
Dodds assures that, although the levels of happiness in human communication can fluctuate in the short term, in the same way that there are ups and downs in the cycles of the economy, the “atoms” of language, that is, words, ” they tend to enhance the positive side. “
