If negative concepts are predominant, we consider the triad unbalanced. In this sense, emotional unbalance reflects the preponderance of negatively-valenced words within a given triad. Our definition of emotional balance corresponds to the definition of strong structural balance considering \(\{-, -, -\}\) triads as unbalanced 42. Ford continues his winning streak (following Alec Baldwin Doesn't Love Me and That's Mr. Faggot to You) with this collection of astute, acerbic and endearingly grumpy essays about his life as a new Continue reading » In many circumstances, the only difference between a completed suicide and a suicide attempt is slightly greater pressure applied to a trigger. In either case the importance of gaining a greater understanding of the psychological conditions surrounding such a tragic event is immediately apparent; what leads an individual to contemplate, and perhaps commit, such an act? Similarly, what sorts of thoughts and feelings does one encounter when experiencing suicidal ideation? And how might our understanding of these phenomena aid in improving prevention efforts? Although these are challenging questions, suicide notes represent one potential window into the psychology of individuals who complete suicide 1, 2. By analyzing the language and contents of suicide notes, we can gain unique insight into shared features of individual experiences and perhaps a greater understanding of the cognitive processes that accompany suicidal ideation 3. One of the most famous members of the 27 Club, Cobain’s death was a tragedy to millions of fans all over the world, many of whom still don’t believe it was a suicide.

Cranky, bemused and extremely funny, Ford (Alec Baldwin Doesn't Love Me) is brilliant even on potentially mundane topics like high school reunions (""Michael Thomas Ford is very proud to announce Continue reading » Following this definition, a triad with a negative word will become balanced if the other two end nodes are positive. An all-positive triad emerges from all positive words or from two positive words with a neutral word. Neutral triads, since they do not contribute to a positive/negative predominance of affect, are not considered (see Fig. 2a). This emotional construction aligns with the definition of balanced ( \(\{+, +, +\}\) and \(\{+, -, -\}\)) and unbalanced ( \(\{-, -, -\}\)) triads in structural balance 42, with the exception that in our application the formation of the unbalanced triad \(\{+, +, -\}\) is not possible. In Cold Falls, N.Y., smalltown rules are changing as Ford's seven gay protagonists make lives for themselves far from big-city gay havens. This entertaining if overstuffed sophomore effort Continue reading »But I didn't love you like you loved me. I don't hate you for that. It just makes me sorry, that there isn't someone else who could love you better. In the present study, we follow the above interpretations by extending the meaning of “balance” to encompass properties of affective organization within the context of signed networks built from conceptual associations. As such we refer to this extended interpretation as emotional balance. Specifically, we study how co-occurrence relationships and valences (sentiments) of words in suicide notes can provide information about possible psychological tensions, distress and emotional disturbances 41 within narrative structures. To yield positive and negative links between words, we adopt the following reasoning:

Adolf Hitler, was too proud to let himself or his wife die in such disgrace and realizing imminent capture, he decided to end his and his wife’s lives. Without any sign of remorse for his deeds as the Führer, Hitler prepared The Last Will that announced the decision of him ending his and his just wedded wife. The author of 100 Questions & Answers About AIDS effectively balances objective information about AIDS with accounts of individual experiences with AIDS and HIV to provide a helpful introductory look Continue reading » Ford's adequate if overbusy latest begins with the body of sheriff Daniel McCloud, who went missing seven years ago, discovered buried in a box in the woods. As the investigation by the current Continue reading » Her last words on camera: “In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in ‘blood and guts’, and in living color, you are going to see another first — attempted suicide.” To study the emotional balance structure of mental states in suicide notes we start by building a signed network from the CO network (see “ Materials and methods” section); then we evaluate its triad frequency and degree of balance—i.e., fraction of balanced triads; finally we present their statistical significance by comparing observed data against two different null models, as well as against the FA network, proceeding similarly as with the CO network. Let us underline that the comparison between the CO network, coming from suicide notes, and the FA network, coming from mind-wandering in the absence of suicide ideation, aims to identify potential patterns of psychological distress expressed in the language of suicide notes and potentially missing from the mental states of healthy controls during free mind-wandering. Emotional balance and triad significance in suicide notesThere used to be days that I thought I was okay, or at least that I was going to be. We'd be hanging out somewhere and everything would just fit right and I would think 'it will be okay if it can just be like this forever' but of course nothing can ever stay just how it is forever.” Network science provides tools for quantifying and reconstructing both semantic frames 18, 19, 20 and emotional associations 12, serving as a framework for the quantitative identification of ways in which people perceive events and happenings 12, 14, 19, 21, 22. In comparison to more opaque machine learning techniques, networks have the advantage of transparently representing a proxy for the associative structure of language in the human mind, within the cognitive system apt at acquiring, storing and producing language, i.e. the mental lexicon 21, 23. Supported by psycholinguistic inquiries into the mental lexicon 14, 23, 24, 25, complex networks built from texts can open a window into people’s mindsets 12. Focus here is given to reconstructing the collective mindset as expressed in the last written words left by people who committed suicide. To this aim, we adopt a corpus of genuine suicide notes gathered in a previous study 9 and including 139 letters from people who committed suicide. The letters come from a collection of suicide notes from sources like newspapers, books and diaries collected by clinical psychologists mostly in the US and in Europe. The notes were written and collected over a time window spanning over 60 years and have been used also for recent machine learning approaches to automatic detection of suicide ideation 9. On average, a letter included 120 ± 12 words and a total of over 2000 different concepts were stated in the whole corpus. Cognitive network approach to suicidal ideation analysis Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Delia says that your body isn't any boy's business, unless they're your pimp, a plastic surgeon, or a pimp plastic surgeon.