Although many studies have distinguished between the social media language use of people who do and do not have a mental health condition, within-person context-sensitive comparisons (for example, analyzing individuals' language use when seeking support or discussing neutral topics) are less common. Two dictionary-based analyses of Reddit communities compared (1) anxious individuals' comments in anxiety support communities (e.g., /r/PanicParty) with the same users' comments in neutral communities (e.g., /r/todayilearned), and, (2) within popular neutral communities, comments by members of anxiety subreddits with comments by other users. Each comparison yielded theory-consistent effects as well as unexpected results that suggest novel hypotheses to be tested in the future. Results have relevance for improving researchers' and practitioners' ability to unobtrusively assess anxiety symptoms in conversations that are not explicitly about mental health.

In this summary, we discuss our approach to the CLPsych Shared Task and its initial results. For our predictions in each task, we used a recursive partitioning algorithm (decision trees) to select from our set of features, which were primarily dictionary scores and counts of individual words. We focused primarily on Task A, which aimed to predict suicide risk, as rated by a team of expert clinicians (Shing et al., 2018), based on language used in SuicideWatch posts on Reddit. Category-level findings highlight the potential importance of social and moral language categories. Word-level correlates of risk levels underline the value of fine-grained data-driven approaches, revealing both theory-consistent and potentially novel correlates of suicide risk that may motivate future research.

Women whose sexual identity is not exclusively heterosexual are at risk for alcohol use disorder (AUD) and problematic drinking. A textual analytic approach focusing on motivated psychological distancing in language style use was used to detect sexual minority women who are at greatest risk for an AUD. Method: Young adult women (N = 254) were asked to complete a self-report measure of sexual orientation self-concept ambiguity as well as free-write about their sexuality. In addition, they completed a questionnaire assessing AUD symptoms according to criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program assessed language markers within participant-written essays that refl ected acute states of aversive self-focus (i.e., fewer fi rst-person pronouns, fewer present-tense verbs). Results: Drinking to cope with negative affectivity mediated the relationship between sexual orientation self-concept ambiguity and AUD symptomology. This indirect effect was conditional, moderated by higher use of language refl ecting motivated psychological distancing, such that the indirect effect was signifi cant only for women whose writing included fewer instances of fi rst-person pronouns and present-tense verbs (-1 SD) compared with those with greater instances of fi rst-person pronouns and present-tense verbs (+1 SD), refl ecting motivated psychological distancing. Conclusions: Sexual minority women are at an increased risk for AUD. Further, this study suggests mechanisms that may exacerbate the relationship between sexual identity uncertainty and problematic drinking. The study presents a novel method of identifying individuals most at risk for alcohol misuse: detecting aversive self-focus in language style and word choice.

People typically assume that killers are mentally ill or fundamentally different from the rest of humanity. Similarly, people often associate mental health conditions (such as schizophrenia or autism) with violence and otherness-treatable perhaps, but not empathically understandable. We take a dictionary approach to explore word use in a set of autobiographies, comparing the narratives of 2 killers (Adolf Hitler and Elliot Rodger) and 39 non-killers. Although results suggest several dimensions that differentiate these autobiographies-such as sentiment, temporal orientation, and references to death-they appear to reflect subject matter rather than psychology per se. Additionally, the Rodger text shows roughly typical developmental arcs in its use of words relating to friends, family, sex, and affect. From these data, we discuss the challenges of understanding killers and people in general.

Women whose sexual identity is not exclusively heterosexual are at risk for alcohol use disorder (AUD) and problematic drinking. A textual analytic approach focusing on motivated psychological distancing in language style use was used to detect sexual minority women who are at greatest risk for an AUD. Method: Young adult women (N = 254) were asked to complete a self-report measure of sexual orientation self-concept ambiguity as well as free-write about their sexuality. In addition, they completed a questionnaire assessing AUD symptoms according to criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program assessed language markers within participant-written essays that refl ected acute states of aversive self-focus (i.e., fewer fi rst-person pronouns, fewer present-tense verbs). Results: Drinking to cope with negative affectivity mediated the relationship between sexual orientation self-concept ambiguity and AUD symptomology. This indirect effect was conditional, moderated by higher use of language refl ecting motivated psychological distancing, such that the indirect effect was signifi cant only for women whose writing included fewer instances of fi rst-person pronouns and present-tense verbs (-1 SD) compared with those with greater instances of fi rst-person pronouns and present-tense verbs (+1 SD), refl ecting motivated psychological distancing. Conclusions: Sexual minority women are at an increased risk for AUD. Further, this study suggests mechanisms that may exacerbate the relationship between sexual identity uncertainty and problematic drinking. The study presents a novel method of identifying individuals most at risk for alcohol misuse: detecting aversive self-focus in language style and word choice.