Analysis of the causes of inferiority feelings based on social media data with Word2Vec

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 12; no. 1; p. 5218
• Main Authors: Liu, Yu, Xu, Chen, Kuai, Xi, Deng, Hao, Wang, Kaifeng, Luo, Qinyao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 25.03.2022; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/477/2811; 692/700/478; 692/700/784; 704/844/1759; Data collection; Emotions; Humanities and Social Sciences; Keywords; Language; multidisciplinary; Natural language processing; Ontology; Perceptions; Privacy; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Self esteem; Semantics; Social behavior; Social networks
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-09075-2

Feelings of inferiority are complex emotions that usually indicate perceived weakness and helplessness. A lack of timely and effective interventions may bring serious consequences to individuals with inferiority feelings. Due to privacy concerns, those people often hesitate to seek face-to-face help, but they usually spontaneously share their feelings on social media, which makes social media a good resource for ample inferiority-related data. We randomly selected a sample of posts indicating inferiority feelings to explore the causes of inferiority. Through language analysis and natural language processing, we constructed a Word2Vec model of inferiority based on social media data and applied it to the cause analysis of inferiority feelings. The main causes of inferiority feelings are personal experience, social interaction, love relationship, etc. People feeling inferior about their personal experiences usually are largely influenced by their ways of thinking and life attitudes. Social and emotional factors overlap somewhat in the development of inferiority. In love relationships, males are more prone to inferiority feeling than females. These findings will help relevant institutions and organizations better understand people with inferiority feelings and facilitate the development of targeted treatment for those with potential self-esteem problems.