Detecting Emotional Expression in Face-to-Face and Online Breast Cancer Support Groups

Accurately detecting emotional expression in women with primary breast cancer participating in supportgroups may be important for therapists and researchers. In 2 small studies ( N 20 and N 16), theauthors examined whether video coding, human text coding, and automated text analysis providedconsistent estimates of the level of emotional expression. In Study 1, the authors compared coding fromvideotapes and text transcripts of face-to-face groups. In Study 2, the authors examined transcripts ofonline synchronous groups. The authors found that human text coding significantly overestimatedPositive Affect and underestimated Defensive/Hostile Affect compared with video coding. They foundcorrelations were low for Positive Affect but moderate for negative affect between Linguistic InquiryWord Count (LIWC) and video coding. The implications of utilizing text-only detection of emotion arediscussed.Keywords: emotional expression, text analysis, breast cancer, group therapy, video coding