Abstract

The word choices people make for expressing ideas and interests can reveal important social and psychological characteristics, and language-based analysis allows researchers to reliably and quickly assess features of the words people use. In a previous study, we found significant differences in the linguistic styles that Democrat and Republican presidents used to express themselves and their concerns in their speeches and also that those have changed over time. In this exploratory study, we investigate which US presidents over the last sixty years display the most and the least authenticity in their formal speeches and whether there are other significant differences in linguistic styles among those presidents. Based on text analysis, findings show that authenticity has declined significantly among Republican presidents but not among presidents in the Democratic party. Incidentally, results show that both Richard Nixon and George W. Bush were statistically significant outliers: Nixon’s speeches measured the highest and Bush’s speeches scored the lowest in markers of authenticity overall. The present study also investigated the levels of confidence in the presidential speeches for each president and by party. Results show that levels of confidence, or clout, have risen consistently among both parties over time, confirming previous research that showed an increase across the major political spectrum. The implications of these findings and the limitations of the present study are explored.