Examining the linguistic and behavioural patterns of gender identity in women with dissociative identity disorder

Abstract

Despite extensive psycholinguistic research on gendered language, investigations of how psychological gender identity shapes linguistic behavior in clinical populations remain scarce. Drawing on Lakoff’s deficit model, which links hedges, tag questions and intensifiers to low authority and self-confidence, we explore gender‐linked speech variation in dissociative identity disorder (DID). Publicly available interview transcripts from six women diagnosed with DID were examined, and the speech of their male‐identity versus female‐identity alters was compared. Qualitative thematic analysis showed that male identity alters predominantly employed hedges—markers of uncertainty—whereas female identity alters favored intensifiers and expressions of powerlessness. To quantify these differences, we ran regression analyses on feature frequencies; baseline rates of hedges (B = 1.54, SE = 0.46) and intensifiers (B = 1.92, SE = 0.65) were both reliably above zero, yet neither hedges nor intensifiers varied significantly by gender identity. These results highlight the influence of psychological gender on language use in DID and point to the need for further research into the cognitive drivers of these patterns.