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posted by on Wednesday January 18 2017, @01:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the this-article-is-rated-pg-13 dept.

The fine bastards at Cambridge bring us this bit o fucking science:

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.

Guess that makes me the most honest motherfucker on the site, eh?


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by schad on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:44PM

    by schad (2398) on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:44PM (#455456)

    There's politeness, and then there's a shivering terror that you might accidentally hurt somebody's feelings.

    Not polite: "Steve, you're a fucking retard. Get out."

    Polite: "I don't think that's the right approach, Steve, and here's why."

    Fear of hurting feelings: "Well Steve, that's a great idea, and it's something we ought to seriously consider. One question I have, though, is whether in this specific case, with the set of unique challenges we face, there might not be more optimal solutions. I definitely think your idea is a great one, and as a rule I'd absolutely agree with you that it's the right way to go. It's just that right here I think we need to put more weight on some other factors, and it may be that if we do that, we'll find there are other ways that we might prefer to go. But tell you what, let's all look into it over the next few days, kind of mull it over, see how we all feel, and then we'll circle back up in a week and see if we've got any more clarity as to the right path forward. Does that sound good to everyone? OK, great, I'll add Steve's thought to the meeting notes here and I'll give you back 4 minutes of your day. I'll talk to you all next week if not before."

    The problem is that cultural norms (at least in some places) have shifted in such a way that the polite response is interpreted as being exactly as rude as the impolite one. So if you don't take 200 words to say "You're wrong" then you're considered an asshole. While this means you get invited to fewer meetings, it does kind of limit your opportunities for advancement.

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  • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:09PM

    by dyingtolive (952) on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:09PM (#455474)

    I guess it does depend pretty heavily on the cultural norms then. I don't think I'm too far off from your estimates though. My idea of being myself is your not polite, and my idea of most everyday corp speak is your polite option. My idea of polite is somewhere in the middle of your polite and quivering fear. I have no problem telling the guy that sits next to me he's a asshole, to which he'd shrug and nod, but I'm aware of the fact that telling one of the guys in Asia that he's a asshole is ineffective on multiple levels.

    I think something that's helped me keep my job (other than swearing being the norm) is that I seldom actually direct it at anyone else. Never really "Steve fucked this up," at least, not while he's in the room, but more, "oh man, this is seriously fucked," perhaps while Steve IS in the room. I shudder to think what will come of a brave new world of hypersensitives though, and at 32, I'm generally lumped in with them.

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!