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 As a lover of all words (well, almost all words; see: moist), I have always had an appreciation for people who could string expletives together in unexpected ways. I’ve felt that the user made a stronger, passionate, more emphatic point with the use of a few colorful expletives.
And it seems that I am not alone in that thinking, as evidenced by a recent study published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science that found people who use profanity were less dishonest than their non-swearing counterparts.
At first blush, it would seem that a natural relationship exists between lying and the use of profanity with both being linked to “low moral standards.” Not so, according to researchers from the Netherlands, the UK, the US, and Hong Kong who measured views on profanity with a series of questions and interactions with social media users.
Nearly 300 participants were asked to list their favorite or most often used swear word(s) along with a reason for its status in the participant’s vocabulary.
The takeaway from this part of the survey: Researchers believed that those participants with longer lists of “favorite” or “often used” obscenities were less likely to lie; concluding that if the participant didn’t filter their answers concerning their profanity usage, it was unlikely that they would filter their views and opinions on other matters.
A second branch of the survey involved culling the usage and frequency of obscenities in the status updates of close to 75,000 Facebook users. According to a similar study, one measure of dishonesty in language is the overuse of third-person pronouns. For instance, a person telling a lie will limit or avoid referring to themselves. Consequently, language patterns related to honesty will include more personal pronouns (i.e., phrases that begin with “I” and “me”). The Facebook users with more profanity in their online communications also used more personal pronouns.
Another interesting discovery from the study found that where you live in the country might also influence your use of profanity. It was discovered that people living in northeastern states (such as Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York) were more likely to use profanity while people from southern states (such as South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi) were less likely to use profanity.
So, considering the results of this study, people who have ever felt badly about their use of profanity can now console themselves with the knowledge that although they might have a potty mouth, at least it is an honest one.
Do you think people who use profanity are less likely to lie? Do you live in a part of the country that frequently uses profanity?
Image credit: Carolyn Tiry / CC BY-SA 2.0
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