MOTIVATION AND LANGUAGE BEHAVIOR: A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF SUICIDE NOTES.

The article discusses a study which explored a content analysis of suicide notes to examine the correlation between motivation and language behavior. The study is based on the notion that whenever a person produces a message, whether it be conversation, an ordinary letter to a relative, or a suicide note, he employs a complex set of encoding habits. The study used two samples of suicide materials written by men and women. The authors found that messages produced under heightened drive level should be more stereotyped, and be more disorganized, if the motivation level is extremely high.