We use language every day to express our emotions, but can
this language actually affect what and how we feel? Two new studies from
Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science,
explore the ways in which the interaction between language and emotion
influences our well-being.
Katharina Kircanski and colleagues at the University of
California, Los Angeles investigated whether verbalizing a current emotional
experience, even when that experience is negative, might be an effective method
for treating for people with spider phobias. In an exposure therapy study, participants
were split into different experimental groups and they were instructed to
approach a spider over several consecutive days.