James W. Pennebaker

James W. Pennebaker, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, is a social psychologist with interests in text analysis, health, and ways people, groups, and cultures cope with upheavals. His cross-disciplinary research is related to linguistics, clinical and cognitive psychology, communications, medicine, and computer science. His text analysis program, LIWC, is well known in psychology, business, and computer science.

Pennebaker's early research dealt with physical symptoms and health which eventually merged into the discovery of expressive writing. The basic idea is that when people are asked to write about emotional upheavals for 3-4 days for 15-20 minutes a day, their physical and mental health improve compared to controls. I am now focused on computerized text analysis as a way of understanding and measuring people’s social behaviors and psychological states.

He continues to explore natural language use, group dynamics, and personality in both laboratory and real world settings.

Pennebaker, who has received numerous research and teaching awards, is the author or editor of 12 books and over 300 articles.