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Does Emotional Arousal Influence Swearing Fluency?

Richard Stephens1, Amy Zile2

  • 1School of Psychology, Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire, ST5 5BG, United Kingdom. r.stephens@keele.ac.uk.

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|January 17, 2017
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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Experimentally induced emotional arousal, through playing a video game, significantly increased swearing fluency. This suggests swearing can be a valid form of emotional expression.

Keywords:
EmotionFirst person shooterState hostilitySwearingTabooVerbal fluency

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Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Sociolinguistics

Background:

  • Emotional arousal influences cognitive processes.
  • Swearing is a complex linguistic behavior often linked to emotion.
  • Understanding factors affecting swearing is crucial for psycholinguistic research.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the causal relationship between emotional arousal and swearing fluency.
  • To test the hypothesis that increased emotional arousal enhances swear word generation.
  • To explore the role of swearing as a form of emotional expression.

Main Methods:

  • Sixty participants were exposed to either a high-arousal (shooter video game) or low-arousal (golf video game) condition.
  • Swearing fluency was measured using a modified Controlled Oral Word Association Test.
  • Emotional arousal was validated using the State Hostility Questionnaire.

Main Results:

  • Participants exhibited significantly greater swearing fluency after playing the shooter game compared to the golf game.
  • The experimental manipulation of emotional arousal was successful, as indicated by increased hostility scores.
  • Swearing fluency measures positively correlated with self-reported swearing and daily swearing frequency.

Conclusions:

  • Experimentally induced emotional arousal enhances swearing fluency.
  • Swearing can serve as a functional form of emotional expression.
  • Findings contribute to understanding the psychological underpinnings and social implications of taboo language.