What the ____is your problem?: Attribution theory and perceived reasons for profanity usage during conflict

Abstract

People may use profanity during conflict in order to release pent up emotions, to show solidarity, to gain attention, to discredit the partner, and for lack of a better alternative. The perceived reasons for which people believe profanity was utilized affected how they emotionally responded to the conflict in particular and how they perceived the overall outcome of the conflict in general. According to the fundamental attribution error (FAE), when dealing with others’ behaviors rather than their own, people tend to overestimate internal causes. Indeed, people viewed another's profanity as due to habitual communication patterns or to emotional expression; both of these motives suggest that the speaker had some control over his/her actions. Profanity that was believed to be used to antagonize the conversational partner led to greater feelings of distress; likewise, using profanity as a form of emotional catharsis seemed to backfire. In contrast, if profanity was believed to be utilized in an attempt to connect with the partner, then the conflict was perceived as being more productive. As attribution theory maintains and as this present project revealed, it is not what is said but why people believe it was stated that matters.

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