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Spotlight on James W. Pennebaker
Professor James W. Pennebaker is a leading health and social psychologist. Since receiving his Ph.D. in 1977, Professor Pennebaker has contributed to three broad research topics - physical symptoms, expressive writing, and natural language use. Each of these projects has produced both theoretical and practical results and has earned Professor Pennebaker wide recognition and acclaim.
Physical symptoms. During the first part of his career, Professor Pennebaker explored how and why people both notice and report physical symptoms. In this work, he found that presumed biological symptoms were strongly influenced by situational cues and the beliefs people held about their bodies (e.g., Pennebaker, 1982). Later research with David Watson demonstrated that people who were generally disposed to negative moods were particularly likely to report a wide array of symptoms across multiple situations. Symptom reporting and Negative Affectivity, then, can be thought of as enduring traits rather than just brief responses to illness or biological upheaval (Watson & Pennebaker, 1989). Professor Pennebaker's symptom work has provided important insights into the placebo response, presumed environmental causes of health problems, and the puzzle of nonspecific diseases such as chronic fatigue syndrome, mass psychogenic illness, and Gulf War Syndrome.
Expressive writing. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Professor Pennebaker discovered that having people write about emotional upheavals for as little as 15 minutes a day for 3-4 days could produce dramatic improvements in people's physical and mental health. Early studies focused on changes in physician visits but later experiments found that writing could enhance immune function, improve grades among students, and help men who had lost their jobs to perform better on job interviews and thus enabling them to return to work more quickly (e.g., Pennebaker, 1997). Since his original publication on this topic in 1986, over 150 articles have been published or are in press using Professo Pennebaker's expressive writing paradigm. This work is featured in textbooks in social, health, clinical, occupational, and personality psychology and has made Professor Pennebaker one of the most frequently cited psychologists in the world.
Natural language use. Since the early 1990s, Professor Pennebaker and his colleagues have been tackling the difficult question of how the words people use can reflect their psychological states. After developing a comprehensive computerized text analysis program, his lab has begun to demonstrate how function words (such as pronouns, prepositions, and articles) can reveal people's emotional state, hormone fluctuations, honesty, and status in an interaction. These reflections of personality and social situations can be seen in natural conversations and even formal writing (Pennebaker, Mehl, & Niederhoffer, 2003). This line of research is garnering great interest among scholars working in linguistics, historical figures, translation, and survey research.
Teaching and Speaking Experience. Professor Pennebaker is a highly sought after speaker and is comfortable with audiences of all sizes. He has won several major teaching awards for his Introductory Psychology class that typically has 500 students. He is asked to give 20-30 colloquia per year and has served as keynote speaker at conferences dealing with many areas of psychology, as well as specialties within psychiatry, anthropology, linguistics, history, and communication. His speaking style is engaging, funny, witty, and rich in new ideas and perspectives.
 
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