University of Twente Student Theses
Examination of the Use and Misuse of Psychiatric Terminology in Public Discourse Using Large Language Models
Kahlert, Viola Louisa (2024) Examination of the Use and Misuse of Psychiatric Terminology in Public Discourse Using Large Language Models.
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| Abstract: | Social media made public discourse accessible but also increased online incivility. Mental health stigma is linked to the derogatory misuse of psychiatric terms like neurotic and neuroticism. This study examined the use of these terms on Twitter, focusing on frequency, context, and offensiveness. It was hypothesized that engagement would differ, with neurotic being used more pejoratively. It was also proposed that offensive use increased over time, showing different trends for neurotic compared to neuroticism. This text mining study analyzed 427,027 English tweets mentioning neurotic and 33,282 mentioning neuroticism, posted between January 2015 and August 2021. The study used roBERTa for offensive language detection, BERTopic for topic modeling, and ChatGPT 3.5 for labeling topics, along with statistical analyses to compare interaction frequencies and offensive content over time. Results showed neurotic is more commonly used than neuroticism, with 31% of neurotic tweets being offensive compared to 8% for neuroticism. Engagement was higher for tweets with neuroticism. Topic modeling identified 89 themes for neurotic and 71 for neuroticism, indicating broader contexts and more derogatory uses for neurotic. The findings highlight the need for educational interventions and stricter policies to promote appropriate use of psychiatric terminology and ongoing research to reduce stigma and improve mental health literacy. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 77 psychology |
| Programme: | Psychology MSc (66604) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/102124 |
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