In this society where a book is judged by its cover, people who use profanities are always labelled with stigma. However, a recent study may have revealed the positive side of these people.
According to the latest research published by Social Psychological and Personality Science, it was deduced that people who swear a lot tend to be more honest than those who don’t swear often.Ā The 3-part experiment was design to find the connection between vulgar words and truth-telling.
In the first part, 276 participants were recruited online by researchers. They were all asked about the frequency of swearing, the pleasure they derived from it and how honest they think they are.
The result revealed that participants who used more profanity are more honest on the lie scale.Ā I swear to god…
Moving on to the second stage, the language patterns of 75,000 netizens’ Facebook statuses who used a particular app were analysed by researchers.
As expected, the result showed that profanity was associated with a more honest language pattern on Facebook status updates.Ā Besides, linguistic analysis also showed that men tend to be more dishonest compared to women. Maybe that’s why their pants are always on fire.Ā
Moreover, netizens who have larger networks are more likely to be dishonest and use less profanity which is seen as online dishonesty. It was speculated that these netizens behaved as such because they wanted to create a more socially desirable social media profile.
In the last part of experiment, they took it beyond individuals and analysed state-level profanity data compared to state-level integrity data. The result was coherent with the findings from the previous 2 experiments.
It was revealed thatĀ people who swear relentlessly probably aren’t too bothered by what people think of them. This same trait that makes them swear more also contributed to their honesty.
However, the researchers did stress that the link established is a correlation, not causation. So it’s not like the more you swear, the more honest you become.Ā Take note guys, there’s a difference.Ā
So guys, don’t go around swearing excessively because it won’t increase your integrity, but will only make you look like a jerk!Ā But at least if you swear occasionally, you know you’re an honest person lah š
Also read:Rich Korean Guy Gets Restrained, Spits And Curse At Flight Attendant
