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The Relationship Between Profanity and Honesty (2017)
- 0_gravitas 7y agoFor those who don't want to click on the link: > There are two conflicting perspectives regarding the relationship between profanity and dishonesty. These two forms of norm-violating behavior share common causes, and are often considered to be positively related. On the other hand, however, profanity is often used to express one’s genuine feelings, and could therefore be negatively related to dishonesty. In three studies, we explored the relationship between profanity and honesty. We examined profanity and honesty first with profanity behavior and lying on a scale in the lab (Study 1; N = 276), then with a linguistic analysis of real-life social interactions on Facebook (Study 2; N = 73,789), and finally with profanity and integrity indexes for the aggregate level of U.S. states (Study 3; N = 50 states). We found a consistent positive relationship between profanity and honesty; profanity was associated with less lying and deception at the individual level, and with higher integrity at the society level.
- asaph 7y ago> ... a linguistic analysis of real-life social interactions on Facebook ... How can they tell if people are being dishonest on Facebook?
- sethammons 7y agoyeah, agreed. I would have thought it would be on the recipient/observer to report if they thought it was a a truthy or falsey statement, but the snippet above does not say that.
- asaph 7y agoEven if the researchers fact check Facebook posts and found them to be untrue, that still wouldn't conclusively point to dishonesty because the message poster might believe in the falsehood. It's not a lie if you believe it.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- throwaway287391 7y ago> The honesty of the status updates written by the participants was assessed following the approach introduced by Newman, Pennebaker, Berry, and Richards (2003) using LIWC. Their analyses showed that liars use fewer first-person pronouns (e.g., I, me), fewer third-person pronouns (e.g., she, their), fewer exclusive words (e.g., but, exclude), more motion verbs (e.g., arrive, go), and more negative words (e.g., worried, fearful; Newman, Pennebaker, Berry, & Richards, 2003). The explanation was that dishonest people subconsciously try to (1) dissociate themselves from the lie and therefore refrain from referring to themselves, (2) prefer concrete over abstract language when referring to others (using someone’s name instead of “he” or “she”), (3) are likely to feel discomfort by lying and therefore express more negative feelings, and (4) require more mental resources to obscure the lie and therefore end up using less cognitively demanding language, which is characterized by a lower frequency of exclusive words and a higher frequency of motion verbs. Equation and usage rates in this study are summarized in Table 2. > Newman et al. (2003) achieved up to 67% accuracy when detecting lies, which was significantly higher than the 52% near-chance accuracy achieved by human judges. Their approach has been successfully applied to behavioral data (Slatcher et al., 2007) and to Facebook status updates (Feldman, Chao, Farh, & Bardi, 2015). Other studies have since found support for these LIWC dimensions as being indicative of lying and dishonesty (Bond & Lee, 2005; Hancock, Curry, Goorha, & Woodworth, 2007; see meta-analyses by DePaulo et al., 2003 and Hauch, Masip, Blandón-Gitlin, & Sporer, 2012). So it's all purely from linguistic analysis of the status updates. Seems like a stretch to me but I wouldn't doubt the overall result is true.
- asaph 7y agoThank you for finding the details of the methodology. I find this unconvincing. 67% accuracy, while better than a coin flip, is still pretty low. 1/3rd of their data points on the relationship between dishonesty and profanity on Facebook are wrong by their own admission.
- blattimwind 7y ago> real-life social interactions on Facebook oxymoron
- tomp 7y ago> profanity and dishonesty. These two forms of norm-violating behavior This implies that honesty is the "norm". I disagree. IMO social etiquette dictates a tremendous amount of "everyday dishonesty" "white micro-lies", and even just not engaging in those (i.e. not "being actively honest", but already just "not being actively dishonest") breaks social norms in a noticeable way.
- computerex 7y agoCompletely agree. Working in a corporate environment, people tend to shy away from any type of negativity or conflict, at all. Being blunt and direct is viewed negatively. I have been told by mentors that I'm too direct and to the point as a critique, which is something I didn't know was even possible. It's incredible. But I have had to train myself to add "fluff" and language to "soften" what I am trying to communicate.
- EliRivers 7y agoDid you see this as a failing on your part - you just didn't notice how the majority of the humans around you operate - or a failing on the part of those other humans?
- computerex 7y agoI see it as a failure on my part, certainly not everyone else. That would be unreasonable. My personal preferred mode of communication is direct and to the point, but I guess most people are not like that.
- harlanji 7y ago> I have had to train myself to add "fluff" You could have quit and became a waiter. You made the choice to add fluff.
- knolan 7y agoI have a mild stammer. I struggle sometimes with certain sounds, I can never order lasagne without stammering. Oddly enough if I swear I can have the fucking lasagne whenever I want.
- Ettvatre 7y agoI wonder if this "workaround" would stop working if people around you found it acceptable for you to swear when ordering lasagna.
- fuckyoughhh 7y agoWho fuck cares it's words.. fucking hell. Go back to complaining about emails with ' hey guys' waitress staff aren't arsed about your bullshit sjw malakery
- taneq 7y agoInteresting thought - is it the personal transgression or the social that makes it effective?
- benj111 7y agoSurely it would depend on whether the speaker thought it was acceptable or not?
- Ettvatre 7y agoMaybe. No idea. Even if people started to accept the swearing maybe the speakers knowledge that he has a special exception allowing him to say these words and it's okay would be enough. Or maybe he still considers it bad to swear even if other people thinks it's okay. It's not like brains always act in some predefined logical way.
- knolan 7y agoI think it’s more to do with my ability to produce certain sounds that various swear words make easier. It’s not that I’ve any major hang up about swearing. The mental hang up is elsewhere, such as feeling anxious ordering food.
- fuckyoughhh 7y agoI can't be arsed reading the fucking shitty article, but generally in my fucking ivory tower opinion cunts that be expressive by using profanity are more honest that those soft nose cunts that think profanity is evil
- 781 7y agoA lot of journalists are swearing lately, including in high profile places like NYT and The Guardian, and especially on Twitter. I suspect it's because they realized (consciously or not) that it increases credibility.
- computerex 7y agoAnd yet when the freshman Congresswoman Rashida Talib said "we'll impeach the motherfucker" everyone lost their shit and MSNBC/CNN and any other left leaning news network dropped their shit to jump on the bandwagon of harassing her.
- 781 7y agoPositive coverage in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/04/democrats-congress-trump-impeach-rashida-tlaib https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/04/democrats-co... Positive coverage in Vox: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/4/18168157/rashida-tlaib-trump-impeachment-motherfucker https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/4/18168157/ra...
- wallace_f 7y agoA quick look at her bio shows she has some Wrongthink ideas so it's not surprising they targeted her. A lot of pundits from those networks swear.
- chrisseaton 7y agoI think there's a difference between swearing at inanimate things for emphasis, and swearing as in calling someone a name, which is personal abuse and shouldn't ever be tolerated no matter who it's targeted at.
- denzil_correa 7y ago> and MSNBC/CNN and any other left leaning news network dropped their shit to jump on the bandwagon of harassing her. How was the the coverage of the right leaning news sites?
- contingencies 7y agoSubmitted to http://lolmythesis.com/ http://lolmythesis.com/ as Swearing is caring.
- eternalban 7y agoHonesty maybe but not truth: "This fucking statement is not fucking true".
- harimau777 7y agoAn interesting followup would be looking at whether this is consistent across different reasons for using or not using profanity. For example, does the correlation hold if you separate people who don't use profanity due to personal moral conviction and people who abstain due to social norms?
- Rexxar 7y agoProfanity is honest in the sense that is show your emotional state but it doesn't tell if you are right or wrong. Additionally, it often doesn't help to engage conversation with people having an opposing view point.
- joe_the_user 7y ago"These two forms of norm-violating behavior share common causes, and are often considered to be positively related." Why do the authors assume dishonesty is "norm-violating"? It seems logical that some forms of dishonesty are norm-conforming and some forms are norm violating. In any case, whether dishonesty actually violates norms should itself be tested rather than assumed (the paper's body actually notes some forms of dishonesty coming from social pressure but the heading is still there). I mean, I might say that the dishonest statement "everyone aspires to honesty and honesty is what we value" is one socially acceptable kind of dishonesty. But that's my idiosyncratic point of view.
- Nasrudith 7y agoYeah - the elephant in the room is that full honesty is essentially a social disability. The social expectation is to learn how to lie on your own at appropriate times.
- rootusrootus 7y agoWell this is good news, my six year old is a very honest kid.
- microtherion 7y agoI wonder whether that effect should be normalized against a profanity baseline for the given person. i.e. I find it somewhat plausible that in an individual, swearing more than usual is positively correlated with being more honest than usual. I find it less plausible that people who swear a lot in general are more honest than people who don't.
- reallydude 7y agoI can see it. The purpose of swearing, as it applies to primates, is suggested to be an additional channel of communication indicating types of danger (can't find the paper to link to, damnit). This includes a general "unknown" danger, as opposed to a directional danger from the ground or air. So the dispense of social norms (saying fuck a lot) to be more communicative is somewhat antithetical to sociopathic mimicry behavior, where you want to be more social nomative to achieve your predatory/anti-social goals.
- microtherion 7y agoThe baseline of how much swearing is customary varies by context (social class, profession, etc). It appears e.g. that swearing is quite common in Wall Street trading culture — not an environment known for a particular commitment to honesty.