Linguistic Style Matching in Crisis Negotiations: A Comparative Analysis of Suicidal and Surrender Outcomes

Abstract

Recent data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's HOBAS database indicates that suicides, attempted suicides, and barricaded stand-offs account for nearly two thirds of all crisis negotiations to which United States law enforcement responds. Gaining insight into the communication dynamics of suicide incidents is, therefore, a critical concern to law enforcement. Negotiators are commonly coached to engage suicidal persons by exploring the subject's feelings, the reality of suicide, the precipitating causes of the suicidal desire, and expressing his/her own personal concern for seeking the subject's safety. Negotiators operationalize these strategies by striving to match their language to that of the suicidal subject. This investigation sought to explore the level of linguistic style matching between crisis negotiation subjects and negotiators as manifested in incidents that conclude in surrender and suicide. Six incidents were divided into 6 time stages, and the language of negotiators and subjects was analyzed across 18 linguistic dimensions of the computational linguistic analysis program Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. Findings indicate notable differences in the valence and strength of the correlations for specific linguistic features among negotiators and subjects that vary by outcome. Additionally, composite linguistic style matching in the suicidal incidents was nearly twice as great in the surrender incidents.