Anger on Sept. 11, 2001, was over-reported, Clemson University psychologist says

CLEMSON, SC – May 10, 2011 –  Cindy Pury, a professor of psychology at Clemson University, has determined that Americans weren’t as angry as most might think following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Her findings will be published this week in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Pury wanted to look for signs of courage during a time of fear. She analyzed transcripts of more than 500,000 text messages sent on Sept. 11, 2001. The transcripts were published anonymously in 2010 on WikiLeaks. Previous analysis of the messages determined Americans got angrier as the hours passed.

“The original researchers used a tool called Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, or LIWC, that measures the word usage and frequency in text messages,” Pury said. “I downloaded the transcripts and started playing around with it in Excel.

“LIWC can be quite sophisticated in looking for words, but without a way to read and analyze content for meaning, it can lead users astray,” Pury said.

The original determination of anger came about because of the repetition of the word critical. LIWC read the word as indicating anger, however, it meant urgent or very important, according to Pury.

“In fact, the message did not even seem to be from a person, but rather from a computer system indicating that critical maintenance was needed,” she said.

The experience compelled Pury to publish her findings and to warn researchers to be alert to redundancies and other glitches in data.

Pury said her discovery made her feel better about her fellow Americans. She said there appeared to be more messages expressing comfort and support than anger.

“The anger findings made sense to me when I first read them,” she said, “but thinking back to 2001, it was not how the situation seemed at the time.” All around Pury, “people were sad and scared. But they were also incredibly considerate and warm and appreciative of each other.”

Pury said among the most frequent message that showed up in Excel expressed a fierce need to connect: “Call me.”

Association for Psychological Science

The Association for Psychological Science (previously the American Psychological Society) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of scientific psychology and its representation at the national and international level. It has approximately 23,000 members and includes the leading psychological scientists and academics, clinicians, researchers, teachers and administrators.