Person
James Pennebaker
Psychologist
Psychologist behind a 1976 field study testing whether authoritarian anti-graffiti signs in a university toilet increased or decreased graffiti compared to polite signs — and whether attributing the sign to a high- or low-authority figure changed the result. Both authoritarian wording and high-authority attribution roughly doubled the amount of graffiti (see Pennebaker Authoritarian-Sign Graffiti Study). Cited by Richard Shotton as the founding demonstration of Psychological Reactance.
A second, unrelated body of research: expressive writing (Episode 306). Leslie John cites Pennebaker's separate, foundational research on the psychological and physical health benefits of writing honestly about troubling experiences — including a study finding HIV-positive patients instructed to write about what troubled them showed higher T-cell counts than a neutral-writing control group (see Pennebaker Expressive-Writing Health Studies). Referenced, not interviewed, in either episode.
Discussed in
- Episode 140 — 140-feel-free-to-ignore-this-episode
- Episode 306 — 306-how-much-should-you-reveal-to-your-co-workers