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Revision as of 22:05, 7 November 2025

Ryan Lee Boyd
Born (1984-01-24) January 24, 1984 (age 41)
Lafayette, Indiana, U.S.
OccupationAssistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Dallas
Known forStylometry
Computational social science
Digital humanities
Psycholinguistics

Ryan L. Boyd (born January 24, 1984) is an American social psychologist, personality psychologist, and computational social scientist known for his work in language-based psychological analysis. He is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Dallas and a contributor to the development of the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software. He is best known for his research on psychological aspects of language, including the development of several psychological stylometry methods to assess authorship and personality in texts.

Education and Career

Boyd earned a B.A. in Psychology from Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne in 2010, followed by an M.S. in Social Psychology and Health Psychology from North Dakota State University in 2012. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin in 2017 under the supervision of James W. Pennebaker.

He has held several academic and research positions:

  • 2017–2019: Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Texas at Austin
  • 2019–2022: Assistant Professor of Behavioral Analytics, Lancaster University
  • 2022–2023: Computational Social Scientist, Threat Research Lab, ByteDance (TikTok)
  • 2023–2024: Associate Research Professor, Stony Brook University
  • 2024–present: Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Dallas

Research

Psychological Stylometry

Boyd's work in psychological stylometry applies computational methods to investigate authorship and personality in texts. In a 2015 study, Boyd and Pennebaker analyzed the play Double Falsehood, concluding that William Shakespeare and John Fletcher were the most likely co-authors.[1][2][3][4][5][6] He has conducted additional disputed authorship studies by early English playwrights, including those of Aphra Behn, providing psychological evidence for the inclusion and exclusion of disputed canon.[7]

In related lines of work, Boyd conducted a forensic psychological analysis of Edgar Allan Poe through text analysis of the author's works and personal writings to determine whether suicide could be ruled out as a cause of death. The research concluded that Poe exhibited signs of psychological distress but found no consistent evidence of suicide.[8][9][10]

Political Psychology

Boyd has examined psychological markers in public language by political leaders, including an analysis of trends in the psychological profile of politicians across several Western nations.[11] The research found that the linguistic style of democrat leaders showed long-term trends toward the election of leaders who were increasingly "confident" but low in analytic thinking.[12][13] Boyd's related work on misinformation and strategic communication has explored the sociological and linguistic signatures of Russian troll accounts during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[14][15]

In 2022, Boyd and Pennebaker analyzed changes in the language of Vladimir Putin in the lead-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, identifying patterns consistent with heightened psychological distancing and aggression.[16]

Psychological Aspects of Language Use

Boyd's work also explores how language reflects social and emotional processes. He conducted a study on the “narrative arc” of storytelling, identifying consistent psychological mechanisms found to be common across fictional and nonfictional narratives[17][18][19], providing the first objective, large-scale identification of story structures consistent with Freytag's Pyramid. This research provided the first clear, computational evidence for psychological processes that underpin storytelling at a structural level.

In studies of emotional processes, his work on how people describe their emotions challenged core assumptions in the application of theories on emotional granularity.[20] In related work on relationship conflict, Boyd's revealing linguistic markers of emotional pain and gender differences in coping strategies. This work challenged the prevailing assumption that female partners in romantic relationships are more emotionally invested than their male counterparts, while using naturalistic data to highlight the most prevalent themes in relationship discord.[21][22][23][24][25]

Selected Publications

  • Boyd, R. L., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2015). Did Shakespeare Write Double Falsehood? Identifying Individuals by Creating Psychological Signatures With Text Analysis. *Psychological Science*, 26(5), 570–582. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614566658
  • Dean, H. J., & Boyd, R. L. (2020). Deep into that darkness peering: A computational analysis of the role of depression in Edgar Allan Poe's life and death *Journal of Affective Disorders*, 266, 482–491. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.01.098
  • Boyd, R. L., Blackburn, K. G., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2020). The narrative arc: Revealing core narrative structures through text analysis *Science Advances*, 6(32), https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba2196.
  • Entwistle, C., Horn, A. B., Meier, T., & Boyd, R. L. (2021). Dirty laundry: The nature and substance of seeking relationship help from strangers online. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 38(12), 3472–3496. https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075211046635

References

  1. ^ Boyd, Ryan L.; Pennebaker, James W. (2015). "Did Shakespeare Write Double Falsehood? Identifying Individuals by Creating Psychological Signatures With Text Analysis". Psychological Science. 26 (5): 570–582. doi:10.1177/0956797614566658. PMID 25854277.
  2. ^ "Finding Shakespeare's Mark". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2025-05-22.
  3. ^ "'Double Falsehood' may have been Shakespeare's, linguistic analysis finds". Los Angeles Times. 10 April 2015. Retrieved 2025-05-22.
  4. ^ "Shakespeare wrote play, researchers say". CNN. 10 April 2015. Retrieved 2025-05-22.
  5. ^ Gee, Alastair (19 June 2015). "The Shakespeare Algorithm". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2025-05-22.
  6. ^ "How Language Nerds Solve Crimes". YouTube. PBS Storied. 2023-07-05. Retrieved 2025-05-21.
  7. ^ Dural, Kevin. "UT researchers solve 400-year mystery of debated authorship using new psychological-language analysis". The Daily Texan. Retrieved 2025-05-23.
  8. ^ Dean, Hannah J.; Boyd, Ryan L. (2020). "Deep into that darkness peering: A computational analysis of the role of depression in Edgar Allan Poe's life and death". Journal of Affective Disorders. 266: 482–491. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2020.01.098. PMC 8688138. PMID 32056916.
  9. ^ "Diagnosing the Long Dead". Proto Magazine. 8 July 2021. Retrieved 2025-05-22.
  10. ^ "Edgar Allan Poe probably didn't commit suicide, says computer textual analysis". Fast Company. 2020-02-24. Archived from the original on 2022-10-07. Retrieved 2025-05-23.
  11. ^ Jordan, Kayla N.; Sterling, Joanna; Pennebaker, James W.; Boyd, Ryan L. (2019-02-26). "Examining long-term trends in politics and culture through language of political leaders and cultural institutions". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116 (9): 3476–3481. Bibcode:2019PNAS..116.3476J. doi:10.1073/pnas.1811987116. PMC 6397582. PMID 30808741.
  12. ^ "Trump's speech: Less analytical, more sure than predecessors". Associated Press. 11 February 2019. Retrieved 2025-05-22.
  13. ^ "Why American voters were primed for a president who talks like Trump". Los Angeles Times. 2019-02-15. Retrieved 2025-05-23.
  14. ^ "Trolling the U.S.: Q&A on Russian Interference". University of Texas News. 9 January 2019. Retrieved 2025-05-22.
  15. ^ Final Report (Report). National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. March 2021. Retrieved 2025-05-29.
  16. ^ "Putin, Bush, and Pronouns: Presaging War". Planet Word. 22 February 2022. Retrieved 2025-05-22.
  17. ^ Boyd, Ryan L.; Blackburn, Kate G.; Pennebaker, James W. (2020). "The narrative arc: Revealing core narrative structures through text analysis". Science Advances. 6 (32): eaba2196. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aba2196. PMC 7413736. PMID 32821822.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: article number as page number (link)
  18. ^ Sawer, Patrick (7 August 2020). "Revealed: The building blocks of a good story". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2025-05-22.
  19. ^ "What Can Science Tell Us About Story Structure?". Science Friday. Retrieved 2025-05-22.
  20. ^ Vine, Vera; Boyd, Ryan L.; Pennebaker, James W. (2020-09-10). "Natural emotion vocabularies as windows on distress and well-being". Nature Communications. 11 (1): 4525. Bibcode:2020NatCo..11.4525V. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-18349-0. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 7483527. PMID 32913209.
  21. ^ Entwistle, Charlotte; Horn, Andrea B.; Meier, Tabea; Boyd, Ryan L. (2021). "Dirty laundry: The nature and substance of seeking relationship help from strangers online". Journal of Personal and Social Relationship. 38 (12): 3472–3496. doi:10.1177/02654075211046635. PMID 34924670.
  22. ^ "Men Are Just As Emotional As Women, Study Suggests". Forbes. Retrieved 2025-05-22.
  23. ^ "Men suffer more emotional pain than women in break-ups, finds study". Yahoo! News. 8 November 2021. Retrieved 2025-05-22.
  24. ^ "Men experience more heartbreak than women after a breakup, finds study". Metro. 2 November 2021. Retrieved 2025-05-22.
  25. ^ "Men more heartbroken than women during a breakup: study". The New York Post. 2021-11-03. Retrieved 2025-05-23.



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