Psychology of Swearing UWS
Last updated on
Apr 19, 2024
2 min read
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This website accompanies the Psychology of Swearing talk held on Friday 19th April at UWS.
Reading list
If you would like more information about anything presented in this talk, I recommend the following sources:
Books
- Benjamin Bergen – What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves. Amazon link.
- Steven Pinker - The Stuff of Thought. Amazon link.
- Emma Byrne - Swearing is Good For You. Amazon link.
Websites
https://stronglang.wordpress.com/
https://twitter.com/stronglang
Journal papers & pre-prints
Beattie, H., Robertson, O., Horlin, C., Spaeth, E., & Nordmann, E. (2022). Gendered attitudes towards swearing: a trans-inclusive mixed methods study of social identity, swearing norms, and behaviour.Preprint
Feldman, G., Lian, H., Kosinski, M., & Stillwell, D. (2017) Frankly, we do give a damn: The relationship between profanity and honesty. Social Psychological and Personality Science
Harris, C. L., Aycicegi, A., & Gleason, J. B. (2003). Taboo words and reprimands elicit greater autonomic reactivity in a first language than in a second language. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24(04), 561-579.
Jay, T. (2009). The utility and ubiquity of taboo words. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4(2), 153-161.
Jay, T., & Janschewitz, K. (2008). The pragmatics of swearing. Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture, 4(2), 267-288.
Jay, K. L., & Jay, T. B. (2013). A child’s garden of curses: A gender, historical, and age-related evaluation of the taboo lexicon. The American Journal of Psychology, 126(4), 459-475.
Jay, K. L., & Jay, T. B. (2015). Taboo word fluency and knowledge of slurs and general pejoratives: deconstructing the poverty-of-vocabulary myth. Language Sciences, 52, 251-259.
Mackay, D. G., Shafto, M., Taylor, J. K., Marian, D. E., Abrams, L., & Dyer, J. R. (2004). Relations between emotion, memory, and attention: Evidence from taboo Stroop, lexical decision, and immediate memory tasks. Memory & Cognition, 32(3), 474-488.
Stephens, R., Atkins, J., & Kingston, A. (2009). Swearing as a response to pain. Neuroreport, 20(12), 1056-1060.
Van Lancker, D., & Cummings, J. L. (1999). Expletives: Neurolinguistic and neurobehavioral perspectives on swearing. Brain research reviews, 31(1), 83-104.
Relationship between age and vocabulary
The correlation between age and animals is r = -0.23, p = 0.129.
The correlation between age and swears is r = -0.12, p = 0.323.
The correlation between swears and animals is r = 0.3, p = 0.036.
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Vocabulary scores by gender
General fluency
Man |
9.30 |
Woman |
10.39 |
Nonbinary |
12.00 |
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Swearing
Man |
7.00 |
Woman |
6.61 |
Nonbinary |
8.50 |
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Most frequent swear words
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Word cloud
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Senior Lecturer in Psychology
I am a teaching-focused Senior lecturer and conduct research into the relationship between learning, student engagement, and technology.