University of Cambridge
It's long been associated with anger and coarseness but
profanity can have another, more positive connotation. Psychologists have
learned that people who frequently curse are being more honest.
Writing in the
journal Social Psychological and Personality Science a team of
researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the USA and Hong Kong report that
people who use profanity are less likely to be associated with lying and
deception.
Profanity is obscene language which, in some social settings is
considered inappropriate and unacceptable. It often refers to language that
contains sexual references, blasphemy or other vulgar terms.
It's usually
related to the expression of emotions such as anger, frustration or surprise.
But profanity can also be used to entertain and win over audiences.
There are conflicting attitudes to profanity and its social impact has changed over the decades. In 1939, Clark Gable uttering the memorable line "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" in the film Gone with the Wind, was enough to land the producers a $5,000 fine.
Nowadays
our movies, TV shows and books are peppered with profane words and, for the
most part, we are more tolerant of them.
As dishonesty and profanity are both considered deviant they are
often viewed as evidence of low moral standards.
On the other hand, profanity
can be positively associated with honesty. It is often used to express
unfiltered feelings and sincerity.
The researchers cite the example of
President-elect Donald Trump who used swear words in some of his speeches while
campaigning in last year's US election and was considered, by some, to be more
genuine than his rivals.
Dr David Stillwell, a lecturer in Big Data Analytics at the
University of Cambridge, and a co-author on the paper, says: "The
relationship between profanity and dishonesty is a tricky one. Swearing is
often inappropriate but it can also be evidence that someone is telling you
their honest opinion. Just as they aren't filtering their language to be more
palatable, they're also not filtering their views. "
The international team of researchers set out to gauge people's
views about this sort of language in a series of questionnaires which included
interactions with social media users.
In the first questionnaire 276 participants were asked to list their
most commonly used and favourite swear words.
They were also asked to rate
their reasons for using these words and then took part in a lie test to
determine whether they were being truthful or simply responding in the way they
thought was socially acceptable.
Those who wrote down a higher number of curse
words were less likely to be lying.
A second survey involved collecting data from 75,000 Facebook
users to measure their use of swear words in their online social interactions.
The research found that those who used more profanity were also more likely to
use language patterns that have been shown in previous research to be related
to honesty, such as using pronouns like "I" and "me."
The
Facebook users were recruited from across the United States and their responses
highlight the differing views to profanity that exist between different
geographical areas.
For example, those in the northeastern states (such as
Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and New York) were more likely to swear
whereas people were less likely to in the southern states (South Carolina,
Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi).