obscene speech

When Ed Miliband makes his first big speech on the economy he might want to sprinkle a little light swearing into his opening paragraphs:

To see whether swearing can help change attitudes, Scherer and Sagarin (2006) divided 88 participants into three groups to watch one of three slightly different speeches. The only difference between the speeches was that one contained a mild swear word at the start:

"…lowering of tuition is not only a great idea, but damn it, also the most reasonable one for all parties involved."

The second speech contained the 'damn it' at the end and the third had neither. When participants' attitudes were measured, they were most influenced by the speeches with the mild obscenity included, either at the beginning or the end. It also emerged that the word 'damn' increased the audience's perception of the speaker's intensity, which was what lead to the increased levels of persuasion.

This knowledge that intensity helps to persuade should be used with caution. Otherwise, you may come off sounding like this.

I don't know if the swearing technique would ever work in Britain anyway, because the main light swear words - damn, bloody - make you sound posh ("I think we're cutting too damn fast, Clarissa") and the other ones make you sound crude or rude: "The Conservatives are pissing all over us," "Osborne has farked this right up innee". Americans can employ a broader vernacular range in public speech.

(h/t PsyBlog)

Comments

[Scott]

Would it work in the UK?

Hague was a thunderer (he probably still is). He always thundered the preamble, before degenerating into mumbling ("I CAN CONFIDENTLY SAY-AY mumblemumblesomethingsomething").

Brown was definitely a thunderer of the highest order. No syllable was spared his thundering. He ended up sounding like he was using a phone for the first time and couldn't quite believe the person on the other end could hear him.

Thatcher was prim and clipped, very schoolmarm-y. Blair was similarly polite - and managed to be slightly matey with it, too. Very CoE. Very cricket.

Of course, IDS and Major were also I-say-old-chaps - but I'm not sure thundering would have helped them very much.

[Dino Morose]

I recall an election campaign talk Paddy Ashdown delivered in 1997 to a group of students where he used the word 'bloody'. I thought it was very effective - he made you feel included, part of an inner circle where he respected his audience enough to speak candidly, avoiding sanitised media-speak. It certainly stuck in my mind.