Semantic analysis suggest Dark Past and Bright Future

Sammanfattning: Based on the findings of the Ingroup Allocation Model (IAM), which suggests that people use evaluative communication to form and maintain groups and as a result increase the individuals’ inclusive fitness, we present the Dark Past & Bright Future (DPBF) hypothesis. This framework suggests that people use positive evaluative statements to induce behaviors that are consistent with the speakers’ goals. Negative evaluative statements, on the other hand, suggest correction of previous mistakes so that positive results can be obtained in the future. DPBF is compared to Construal Level Theory (CLT) which suggests that values diminish over time and favors symmetrical valence distributions. Data from text analysis suggest that DPBF’s distribution is favored over CLT’s.