Relating Tabooness to Humor and Arousal Ratings in American English: What the F Is so Funny?

Emotion can have a profound effect on language processing, and taboo words have been increasingly used in research as highly emotional, negatively valenced stimuli. However, because taboo words as a lexical category are socially constructed and semantically idiosyncratic, they may also have complex...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Language and speech 2024-12, Vol.67 (4), p.1121-1134
Main Authors: Shafto, Meredith A., Abrams, Lise, James, Lori E., Hu, Pengbo, Gray, Genevieve
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
American English
Arousal
Emotions
English
Female
Humans
Humor
Language
Language processing
Male
Middle Aged
North American English
Ratings & rankings
Researchers
Semantics
Stimuli
Taboo language
Taboos
Wit and Humor as Topic - psychology
Words
Young Adult
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Summary:Emotion can have a profound effect on language processing, and taboo words have been increasingly used in research as highly emotional, negatively valenced stimuli. However, because taboo words as a lexical category are socially constructed and semantically idiosyncratic, they may also have complex emotional characteristics. This complexity may not be fully considered by researchers using taboo words as research stimuli. This study gathered tabooness, humor, and arousal ratings to provide a resource for researchers to better understand the sources and characteristics of the strong emotions generated by taboo words. A total of 411 participants aged 18–83 were recruited via online platforms, and all participants rated the same 264 words on tabooness, humor, and arousal. Analyses indicated that tabooness and humor ratings were positively related to each other, and both were predicted by arousal ratings. The set of ratings included here provides a tool for researchers using taboo stimuli, and our findings highlight methodological considerations while broadening our understanding of the cognitive and linguistic nature of highly emotional language.
ISSN:0023-8309
1756-6053
1756-6053
DOI:10.1177/00238309241228863