Welcome to the homepage for the Evaluative Lexicon
We created the Evaluative Lexicon (EL) to allow researchers the ability to measure multiple facets of individuals' evaluations using their language (see Rocklage & Fazio, 2015). Specifically, the EL currently allows researchers to simultaneously measure the valence, extremity, and emotionality of individuals' evaluations through the adjectives they use.
This webpage was created as a resource for researchers interested in using the EL in their own work.
Why use the Evaluative Lexicon?
While other tools exist to quantify individuals' language, our approach is quite unique as the EL was designed to specialize in measuring individuals' evaluations.
Our tool is grounded in the rich theory and research within the attitudes domain in social psychology. In the attitudes literature, there exists a distinction between attitudes based relatively more on "cognition" – beliefs about an object and its properties as, for instance, "beneficial" – versus attitudes based relatively more on affect – emotional reactions to an object as, for example, "terrifying." A host of psychological research has supported the importance of this distinction and the consequences of basing one's attitude on one type of information versus the other.
While many methods use a simple frequency count (e.g., how many times the word "love" is used in the text), our tool utilizes a database of values to quantify individuals' evaluations. For example, based on a large, separate group of participant judges, the word "magnificent" has been judged to have an average positivity rating of 8.71 out of 9.00 and an emotionality rating of 6.80 of 9.00. We then use these numbers to quantify individuals' language and, thus, their evaluation.
How do I use the Evaluative Lexicon?
The EL allows researchers flexibility when conducting studies. For instance, it can be used both as a checklist (e.g., "Choose those adjectives that best describe your evaluation of the object.") or used to analyze naturalistic text.
At this time we are providing the basic files needed to get started, but in the future we will be providing instructions and scripts to run the EL as a checklist, instructions and resources for analyzing natural text, and scripts to prepare the data for analysis.
To download the original EL journal article for more information as well as how we have used the EL as a checklist and in natural text, click here.
To download the EL itself, click here.
Contact us
If you have any questions or thoughts you would like to share with us, please feel free e-mail us. We would be happy to hear from you.