This is Your Language on Stress

by Conner

One of the small surprises I’ve encountered this semester is the struggles I’ve had in find things to write about for this blog–and for every other assignment, too. My writing has felt stilted and strange, and everything takes significantly longer than it did in the past. I mean…am I just getting old? Or is something else going on?

It could be because I’m under a lot of long-term stress because of the pandemic. Studies have shown that the more stressed you are, the less complex your thoughts—it’s called the disruptive stress hypothesis (Suedfeld & Rank, 1976). 

So when even thinking about things is harder than it used to be, you can imagine the impact this will have on our personal interactions, including our ability to express ourselves clearly to others in speech and writing. Researchers have found that the ability to deliver a coherent narrative demands good executive functioning, and executive function is taxed under stress (Arnsten, 2009).

A 2014 study found the more stress you’re experiencing, the less complex thoughts you’ll be able to form and express to others (Saslow, et. al.).

Okay, this is all fine, but it’s mostly about the brain. Why did I want to put it in a sociolinguistics blog? Let’s say that, as the above study also noted, long-term exposure to stress can also lead to long-term changes in your brain, “which concurrently leads to both lower complexity and…exaggerated reactivity under pressure.” Stress makes you have problems thinking complex thoughts, which means you have problems expressing and understanding these thoughts in speech and writing when you try to deal with other people.

Oh, also, the tools we use to communicate have changed. It seems like changes in society + changes in our brains + changes in the ways we communicate with each other could result in some pretty fundamental language change.

Researchers at the University of Michigan have already began to study language change over the course of the pandemic. They note that previous crises like World War II caused language change because it brought people together in novel ways, but the current pandemic has been keeping people apart (Popiolek, 2020).

As society changes and our brains change concurrently, so will the way we speak to each other. So if you’re struggling, take consolation! You might just be stressed. Or getting old. Possibly a combination of the two.

Have you noticed a difference in the way you express your ideas to others since the pandemic has started? Beyond simple vocabulary changes, do you think we will see long-term linguistic effects from the pandemic in the future?

Resources

Arnsten A. F. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nat Rev Neurosci, 10(6), 410-22.

Popiolek, K. (2020). Researchers study how COVID pandemic is affecting language change. MSU Today. https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2020/researchers-study-how-covid-pandemic-is-affecting-language-change/

Saslow, L. R., McCoy, S., van der Löwe, I., Cosley, B., Vartan, A., Oveis, C., Keltner, D., Moskowitz, J. T., & Epel, E. S. (2014). Speaking under pressure: low linguistic complexity is linked to high physiological and emotional stress reactivity. Psychophysiology, 51(3), 257–266. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12171

Suedfeld P. & Rank A. D. (1976) Revolutionary leaders: Long-term success as a function of changes in conceptual complexity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34(2), 169.