Table 1.

Mean Percentage of Responses Fitting Each Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) Category by Age

LIWC category	Total sample aged 18–95 years (n = 4,000)	Young adulthood aged 18–29 years (n = 1,000)	Early midlife aged 30–49 years (n = 1,000)	Late midlife aged 50–64 years (n = 1,000)	Late life aged 65 and older (n = 1,000)
First-person plural (we, us, our)	0.34 (0.78)	0.19 (0.54)	0.33 (0.77)	0.41 (0.80)	0.44 (0.92)
Family (son, husband, aunt)	0.57 (1.01)	0.51 (0.95)	0.61 (1.03)	0.50 (0.92)	0.65 (1.13)
Friends (buddy, pal, neighbor)	0.62 (0.97)	0.51(0.90)	0.64 (1.02)	0.62 (0.92)	0.69 (1.00)
Health (ache, doctor, exercise)	0.91 (1.14)	0.72 (1.05)	0.87 (1.09)	1.02 (1.20)	1.03 (1.18)
Positive emotion (love, sweet, nice)	10.44 (4.72)	9.09 (4.34)	10.13 (4.60)	11.26 (4.87)	11.30 (4.69)
First-person singular (I, me, mine)	9.01 (3.64)	10.55 (3.44)	9.27 (3.44)	8.39 (3.47)	7.82 (3.63)
Work (job, majors, boss)	1.87 (1.90)	2.15 (2.08)	1.80 (1.83)	1.62 (1.70)	1.89 (1.94)
Achievement (earn, hero, win)	1.80 (1.58)	1.94 (1.70)	1.95 (1.64)	1.76 (1.56)	1.56 (1.39)
Money (audit, cash, owe)	0.51 (0.87)	0.45 (0.81)	0.52 (0.89)	0.49 (0.85)	0.58 (0.94)
Attractiveness (hot, beautiful, cute)	0.38 (0.71)	0.38 (0.73)	0.38 (0.75)	0.39 (0.69)	0.36 (0.66)
Sexual (arouse, horny, sex)	1.46 (1.70)	1.55 (1.70)	1.42 (1.62)	1.51 (1.79)	1.37 (1.70)
Negative emotion (hurt, ugly, nasty)	0.81 (1.13)	1.07 (1.30)	0.91 (1.19)	0.69 (1.02)	0.59 (0.94)