Keep Your Carpenter Foul Mouth at Work and Never Use It at the Dinner Table Again
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The Science of Swearing
Apr 25, 2012
Why would a psychological scientist study swearing? Expertise in such an area has different applied significance inside and outside the community of psychological science. Exterior the scientific community, expertise on taboo language is justification for frequent consultation about contemporary issues that are perennial: Is swearing harmful? Should children be allowed to swear? Is our swearing getting worse? One of u.s. has been interviewed over 3,000 times by various media with respect to the questions to a higher place, besides as those about the employ of taboo words in tv set, advertizement, professional person sports, radio, music, and film. In addition to consultation with mass media, skilful testimony has been needed in cases involving sexual harassment, fighting words, scout-line spoken communication, disturbing the peace, and contempt of court cases.
Considering the persistent demand for an expert to consult for the above issues, information technology is odd that swearing expertise is weighted so differently when swearing is viewed from the perspective of psychological scientific discipline. While hundreds of papers take been written almost swearing since the early 1900s, they tend to originate from fields outside of psychology such equally sociology, linguistics, and anthropology. When swearing is a role of psychological enquiry, it is rarely an cease in itself.
Kristin Janschewitz
It is far more common to see potent offensive words used as emotionally arousing stimuli — tools to study the issue of emotion on mental processes such as attending and memory.
Why the public-versus-science disconnect? Is swearing, as a behavior, outside the telescopic of what a psychological scientist ought to report? Because swearing is influenced so strongly past variables that can exist quantified at the individual level, psychological scientists (more than linguists, anthropologists, and sociologists) have the best training to answer questions about information technology. Some other explanation for the relative lack of accent on this topic is the orientation of psychological science to processes (east.one thousand., memory) rather than life domains (e.chiliad., leisure activities), a problem described by Paul Rozin. Arguably, a more than domain-centered approach to psychological study would better adjust topics such as swearing and other taboo behaviors.
Regardless of the reason for the relative lack of emphasis on swearing research per se within psychological science, there is however a stiff demand from outside the scientific community for explanations of swearing and associated phenomena. To give the reader a sense of the piece of work that nosotros do as psychological scientists who written report swearing, let's consider some of the common questions nosotros're asked virtually swearing.
Is swearing problematic or harmful?
Courts presume damage from speech in cases involving discrimination or sexual harassment. The original justification for our obscenity laws was predicated on an unfounded supposition that spoken language tin can deprave or corrupt children, but there is little (if any) social-science data demonstrating that a word in and of itself causes impairment. A closely related trouble is the manner in which harm has been defined — damage is most commonly framed in terms of standards and sensibilities such equally religious values or sexual mores. Rarely are there attempts to quantify damage in terms of considerately measurable symptoms (east.g., slumber disorder, anxiety). Psychological scientists could certainly make a systematic effort to establish behavioral outcomes of swearing.
Swearing tin occur with whatever emotion and yield positive or negative outcomes. Our work so far suggests that nigh uses of swear words are not problematic. We know this considering nosotros accept recorded over ten,000 episodes of public swearing by children and adults, and rarely have nosotros witnessed negative consequences. We take never seen public swearing pb to physical violence. Virtually public uses of taboo words are non in anger; they are innocuous or produce positive consequences (e.g., humor elicitation). No descriptive data are available almost swearing in private settings, yet, so more work needs to be done in that area.
Therefore, instead of thinking of swearing as uniformly harmful or morally incorrect, more meaningful information about swearing can be obtained by asking what advice goals swearing achieves. Swear words tin can achieve a number of outcomes, as when used positively for joking or storytelling, stress management, fitting in with the crowd, or every bit a substitute for physical assailment. Recent work past Stephens et al. fifty-fifty shows that swearing is associated with enhanced pain tolerance. This finding suggests swearing has a cathartic effect, which many of the states may take personally experienced in frustration or in response to pain. Despite this empirical testify, the positive consequences of swearing are commonly disregarded in the media. Here is an opportunity for psychological scientists to help inform the media and policymakers past clearly describing the range of outcomes of swearing, including the benefits.
Is it bad for children to hear or say swear words?
The harm question for developed swearing applies to issues such every bit exact corruption, sexual harassment, and discrimination. When children enter the pic, offensive language becomes a problem for parents and a basis for censorship in media and educational settings. Considering the ubiquity of this problem, it is interesting that psychology textbooks do non address the emergence of this behavior in the context of development or linguistic communication learning.
Parents often wonder if this behavior is normal and how they should answer to it. Our data show that swearing emerges by historic period ii and becomes developed-similar by ages 11 or 12. By the fourth dimension children enter school, they have a working vocabulary of 30-forty offensive words. Nosotros have yet to decide what children know nearly the meanings of the words they use. We practise know that younger children are likely to employ milder offensive words than older children and adults, whose lexica may include more strongly offensive terms and words with more than nuanced social and cultural meanings. We are currently collecting data to amend sympathize the development of the child'due south swearing lexicon.
We exercise not know exactly how children learn swear words, although this learning is an inevitable function of linguistic communication learning, and information technology begins early in life. Whether or not children (and adults) swear, we know that they practise acquire a contextually-bound swearing etiquette — the advisable 'who, what, where, and when' of swearing. This etiquette determines the difference between amusing and insulting and needs to be studied farther. Through interview data, we know that immature adults report to have learned these words from parents, peers, and siblings, not from mass media.
Considering that the consequences of children'due south exposure to swear words are ofttimes cited as the basis for censorship, psychological scientists should make an endeavour to describe the normal course of the development of a child'south swearing lexicon and etiquette. Is information technology important to attempt to censor children from language they already know? While psychological scientists themselves do not establish language standards, they tin provide scientific data about what is normal to inform this debate.
Has swearing become more than frequent in contempo years?
This is a very common question, and it'southward a tough one to answer considering we have no comprehensive, reliable baseline frequency data prior to the 1970s for comparison purposes. It is truthful that we are exposed to more forms of swearing since the inception of satellite radio, cable television, and the Internet, but that does not mean the average person is swearing more oftentimes. In our recent frequency count, a greater proportion of our data comes from women (the reduction of a once big gender difference). We interpret this finding as reflecting a greater proportion of women in public (due east.g., many more women on college campuses) rather than a coarsening of women. Our forthcoming research also indicates that the almost often recorded taboo words accept remained adequately stable over the past 30 years. The Anglo-Saxon words we say are hundreds of years old, and most of the historically offensive sexual references are still at the summit of the offensiveness list; they take not been dislodged past modern slang. Frequency data must be periodically collected to answer questions about trends in swearing over time.
Thus, our data exercise not bespeak that our civilization is getting "worse" with respect to swearing. When this question arises, nosotros also oftentimes fail to acknowledge the impact of recently-enacted laws that penalize offensive language, such every bit sexual harassment and discrimination laws. Workplace surveillance of telephone and email conversations also curbs our utilize of taboo language.
Do all people swear?
We tin can answer this question by saying that all competent English language speakers learn how to swear in English. Swearing by and large draws from a pool of 10 expressions and occurs at a charge per unit of about 0.five pct of i'southward daily word output. However, information technology is non informative to call back of how an boilerplate person swears: Contextual, personality, and fifty-fifty physiological variables are critical for predicting how swearing will occur. While swearing crosses socioeconomic statuses and age ranges and persists across the lifespan, it is more common among adolescents and more frequent among men. Inappropriate swearing tin can be observed in frontal lobe harm, Tourette's disorder, and aphasia.
Swearing is positively correlated with extraversion and is a defining feature of a Type A personality. It is negatively correlated with conscientiousness, agreeableness, sexual anxiety, and religiosity. These relationships are complicated past the range of meanings within the various group of taboo words. Some religious people might eschew profanities (religious terms), but they may accept fewer reservations about offensive sexual terms that the sexually anxious would avoid. We have still to systematically study swearing with respect to variables such as impulsivity or psychiatric weather, (e.1000., schizophrenia and bipolar disorder). These may exist fruitful avenues along which to investigate the neural basis of emotion and self-control.
Taboo words occupy a unique identify in language considering once learned, their utilize is heavily context driven. While we accept descriptive data about frequency and self reports nearly offensiveness and other linguistic variables, these data tend to come up from samples that overrepresent young, White, middle-course Americans. A much wider and more diverse sample is needed to better characterize the apply of taboo language to more than accurately respond all of the questions here.
Source: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/the-science-of-swearing
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