Emotion Vocabularies Used in Therapy: Investigating How Emotion Language Supports Adolescents’ Emotion Regulation and Mental Health

The proposed project examines how the words adolescents use to describe their emotions change over the course of psychotherapy and whether having a broader vocabulary for both positive and negative emotions is linked to better mental health outcomes. To address these questions, the study will analyze text- and video-based conversations from approximately 1,500 adolescent–therapist pairs delivered through the Talkspace online psychotherapy platform. This research project will benefit both participating institutions by strengthening collaboration between research teams at Princeton University and the University of Guelph, advancing shared expertise in emotion-language and adolescent mental health research, and generating high-quality research outputs including a peer-reviewed academic manuscript, a conference presentation and doctoral student’s dissertation.

Faculty Supervisor:

Kristel Thomassin

Student:

Partner:

Princeton University

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Life Sciences (not health); Other

University:

University of Guelph

Program:

Globalink Research Award

Current openings

Find the perfect opportunity to put your academic skills and knowledge into practice!

Find Projects