PC Language

This section of the literature review contains an essay and studies on a particular manifestation of prejudice and the effectiveness or mechanisms behind PC culture and movement. The key themes have been a scepticism on the effectiveness of PC language and why it might not achieve its aim and purpose by exploring linguistic phenomena like moral self-licensing or the euphemism treadmill. Nevertheless, we concluded that from the general state of research reviewed, it was inconclusive whether or not PC culture is effective. However, it is undeniable that PC culture is founded on principles that accept linguistic relativity, and problematise language as being a causal and effective factor in constructing and reinforcing our prejudice. Whilst we support verbal hygiene and a movement to be conscious of our language use and being critical of our implicit prejudices, we think it is important to give more attention to the discourse underlying the semantics of language: the root problems which are far more influential on prejudicial behaviour.

“A Critique of Politically Correct Language” – Ben O’Neil:

O'Neil focuses on the issue of the use of PC language and its purported ideology and practical effect of acting as a mechanism against prejudice and discrimination. He asks whether or not PC language achieves the outcome it claims to creates, and in doing os impliedly criticises the linguistic prescriptivism in which political correctness as an ideology is founded in. O'Neil summarises that the pro-PC movement purports that because what we say defines our thought, using PC language can help separate the prejudice from the group of people we attach them to with the words we use as labels.

O'Neil argues that words are not offensive in-it of themselves - supporting a Saussurean/Chomsky theory that language is arbitrary. He constructs he argument around this central concept, and claim that it is the semantic change of words which make them offensive - and at the foundation, it is our prejudicial thoughts that perpetuate discrimination, not the words we use. He goes on to given an example of how the word "retarded" was a neutral and accurate descriptor, which was the symbol to the thought of someone which a mental impediment, attached to the referent: an actual individual who is mentally disabled. However, through semantic change, it has come to be attached to the thought that having a mental disability is something to be ashamed of through the word being used to offend others.

He describes this semantic change of "offensive" words to "neutral" alternatives as the Euphemism Treadmill, in which we abandon a word after the symbol attaches its referent to an offensive thought and adopt a new word. It is cyclical because the new word will eventually go through the same semantic change, and people will need to replace the new word with a newer alternative. He goes so far as to say that PC language "manufactures offense" through this Euphemism Treadmill by over-generalising a minority of people using a certain word in an offensive manner to mean that everyone uses that word in an offensive manner - thus actually constructing the offensive meaning in the word.

O'Neil further criticises PC culture as not only failing to achieve its goal, but does the opposite by giving more vocabulary to prejudicial thoughts through the Euphemism Treadmill, and also mask our prejudice by allowing a "neutral" word to describe our thoughts and normalising the prejudice by believing that simply using a different word will solve the underlying problem. When we use a different word, our prejudice doe snot go away, but we get to express it without deterrence because our language is perceived to be "PC".

“I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I wasn’t poor, I was needy. They told me it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy, I was deprived. Then they told me underprivileged was overused. I was disadvantaged. I still don’t have a dime. But I have a great vocabulary” (Burkhardt 2010, 363).

“Moral Self-Licensing: When Being Good Frees Us to Be Bad” - Anna C. Merritt, Daniel A. Effron, and Benoıˆt Monin

The articles reviews research done on the moral self-licensing effect in the domains of PC, prosocial behaviour, and consumer choice. Moral self-licensing is when past moral behaviour makes people more likely to do potentially immoral acts without worrying about feeling or appearing as immoral. In other words, a commissioning effect based on a past track-record of "goodness" to do something that is considered immoral without guilt in doing so.

Crandall & Eshleman (2003) found that modern Americans generally wish to avoid feeling or appearing prejudicial, yet can be tempted to express prejudiced views. The researchers note the social norms of anti-prejudice and equality do not seem to prevent prejudiced behaviour in individuals, and seek to explain this through moral self-licensing. Monin & Miller (2001) found that when participants were allowed to demonstrate a lack of prejudice before presenting them with a potential moral dilemma of potentially appearing prejudiced, they would make a decision which could appear prejudiced. The scenario they were presented with was a difficult choice of hiring a new police officer the police chief has to make. The department is predominantly white with racial tensions, and recently a black officer quit because of racism in the department. Participants given a chance to demonstrate less prejudice selected a white candidate explaining that it was due to the racially hostile work environment. Those not given a chance to show their lack of prejudice said that the job would be equally suited for a white or black candidate. Monin & Miller concluded that participants who had the opportunity to obtain a moral license by demonstrating a lack of prejudice were freed from the anxiety of making a morally ambiguous decision, as they felt their past action characterises the subsequent decision to be non-prejudicial. The general research trend reveals that individuals will strategically seek out opportunities to act morally if they know that they might need a moral license for an upcoming dubious action. In reviewing the research, Merritt et al. concluded that establishing one's lack of prejudice, even through a token gesture, can allow them to morally self-license.

Some research suggested that moral self-licensing can disinhibit selfish behaviour. Sachdeva et al. (2009) asked participants to write a short story about themselves using either nine morally positive or negative words. Then at the end of the study, the participants were given a chance to donate part of their compensation for charity. The positive word group donated the least, whilst the negative word group donated the most. This was found to be a compensation for feeling immoral, and a demonstration of a moral-cleansing effect - the opposite to the moral self-licensing effect.

Jordan et al. (2009) found that when participants were asked to describe a past event in which they acted morally, immorally, or a control topic, and then asked how likely they are to join a prosocial activity (such as donating blood), participants who recalled a moral past event were less likely to participate. In a second study with the same conditions, the participants who recalled a morally positive past event were more likely to cheat on a maths test.

Further research review revealed that merely imagining helping others trigger the same moral self-licensing effect, demonstrating that the paradigm to trigger the effect is as low as vicarious proximity to a hypothetically moral behaviour.

Khan & Dhar (2006) asked participants to imagine various activities, and in the experimental group, asked participants to imagine accepting to help a student for a few hours. Afterwards, they asked the participants to donate their compensation, and the participants who imagined agreeing to help students donated the least.

Batson et al. (1999) further illustrated that individuals want credit for moral intentions without having to pay the costs by demonstrating that if you allow individuals to express exemplary intentions, they feel licensed to not follow through. Tanner & Carlson (2008) found that participants who were asked how likely they are to perform a prosocial behaviour in an ideal world were less likely to do the same prosocial behaviour in the real world. The control group indicated the same probability of doing the same prosocial behaviour as the ideal world scenario of the experimental group when only asked what they will to in the real world.

The researchers suggest that consumer choices in a capitalist and consumerist society and culture of today has a strong moral narrative attached to it. As an example, they cite Dahl et al. (2003) which found that buying luxury items or frivolous goods was associated with feeling of guilt and self-indulgence. Khan & Dhar (2006) asked participants the hypothetical choice of buying a luxury item or a relative necessity (like a vacuum cleaner). Participants who were first asked to imagine doing something altruistic chose the luxury item more often than those who were not asked to imagine altruistic behaviour. It was concluded that one can self-license one's frivolous consumption behaving or thinking of behaving in ways that establish one's morality. This also indicates that moral self-licensing reduces guilty feelings.

The researchers largely focus on the issue of the moral credits or moral credentials model to explain moral self-licensing. Moral credits model suggests that moral behaviour is a balance, in which good behaviour generates credits which can be spent to commission immoral behaviour. Thus the actor perceives the immoral act equally as bad as those who are not morally self-licensed in the situation, but feel they have earned a right to transgress due to past moral behaviour. The moral credential model suggests that past moral behaviour actually changes the meaning of the transgression to something that is not immoral, and thus the individual feels more comfortable in transgressing. In the credential model, past behaviour acts as a lens to construe the current behaviour. This is done when the motivation of the current behaviour is morally ambiguous, and past moral behaviour invalidates the immoral explanation of motivation.

The two models are not necessarily contradictory or conflicting, in fact, they may suggest two different mechanisms in which the moral self-licensing effect is triggered. In relation to the two models, Merritt et al. examined when past-behaviour license and when it constrains moral transgressions. Fischbach & Dhar (2005) found that individuals who were lead to view initial goal pursuit as a sign of their commitment to the goal, they demonstrated moral consistency. However, when they were prompted to view initial goal pursuit as progress towards the goal, they acted licensed. This suggests that moral consistency is triggered when the goal is viewed as unattained or not reached, however it the goal is satisfied to some extent, self-licensing is triggered instead.

They also found that social labelling of an individual as moral leads to more consistency in moral behaviour that asking them to act morally. Miller et al. (1995) found that fifth graders who were told they were neat were less likely to litter than their peers who were asked to be neat and tidy.

Research also revealed that moral self-licensing can be done by an observer who licenses another's moral transgression based on their past moral behaviour. Nisan & Horencyzyk (1990) found that children who were described as "good" were preferred by participants to allow their transgression, whilst children described as "bad" were negatively perceived for the same transgression. Elfron & Monin (2009) similarly found that when an executive's morally suspect behaviour was explained as a mere transgression, it was viewed as hypocritical, but when it was coupled with his past exemplary moral track-record, observers demonstrated a moral licensing effect in their perception of their morally ambiguous behaviour by invalidating the immoral explanation for their motive.

In reviewing the various research studies, Merritt et al. concluded that good deeds may make actors feel licensed to act in a morally ambiguous way but inhibit them from committing blatant transgression in order to act morally consistent. They found that this effect is triggered not only in the individuals but also in observers of the individuals. The explain that moral self-licensing may serve a function, so as to prevent our indecision by reducing guilt, and allow individual growth by preventing us from being hampered by continual moral pursuits to constantly try to right the wrongs in the world.

"Swearing, Euphemisms, and Linguistic Relativity“- Jeffrey S Bowers and Christopher W Pleydell-Pearce

Bowers and Pleydell-Pearce hope to find out whether the human brain processes taboo words and euphemisms differently, and the role linguistic relativism plays in the process.

The researchers consider the claim termed “thinking-for-speaking”, that is, people organize their thinking to meet the demands of their language during speech. In other words, language only affects people’s thoughts at the time of speaking. This claim stands in contrast with the theory of linguistic relativity, which postulates that the form of one’s language influences how one thinks in general. There is evidence, however, showing that different language might require speakers to pay attention to different aspects of the world in order to convey ideas. An example is given regarding English and Tzeltal, a Mayan language spoken by people in mountainous areas. While English and many other languages in general use relative spatial terms to describe the locations of objects (“the book is on the left of the pen”), Tzeltal uses absolute terms instead (“the book is uphill of the pen”). Therefore, Tzeltal speakers would be more likely to take into account his surroundings to better describe the positions of objects than English speakers. Such information must also be stored mentally in order for speakers to describe verbally, becoming think-for-potential-speaking, blurring the line between the two aforementioned theories.

The first hypothesis put forth by the researchers in the present case is termed “not-thinking-for-speaking”: since the usage of aversive words results in an emotional response associated with them, the form of a language could discourage people from thinking certain thoughts which might lead to the usage of these taboo words. The second hypothesis is contingent on the validity of the first, that euphemisms, which pack less emotional impact than the taboo words, allow speakers to overcome this aversion and talk about these subjects without using the aversive words associated with it. More importantly, it is hypothesized that the reason for this difference in impact is due to the difference in their forms (in this case, spelling) instead of meaning.

Graph (a) above is an alternate hypothesis that the reason for a difference in emotional impact is because the offensive word and the euphemism bear different meanings. Graph (b) illustrates the current hypothesis, that is, the mere difference in the spelling of the two words is already enough to trigger a difference in emotional impact, as indicated by the diagonal arrows.

Participants of the study were shown swear words and their euphemistic forms randomly, and asked to say the words out loud. Their brains were monitored for their neural response to the words. The greater the amplitude of the response, the greater the emotional impact of saying the word out loud. It was found that, on average, the emotional response towards swear words is much greater than that towards their euphemisms. This proves the researchers’ hypotheses, that avoidance of emotional impact is a main factor when choosing euphemisms over taboo words, and that this choice is mainly due to the difference in the form of the word instead of a difference in meaning.

The researchers further adduce real-life examples and past studies to accentuate their claim. For example, a British politician’s surname was unintentionally mispronounced as a swearword on BBC, which offended some listeners and led to the BBC issuing an apology. Even though the meaning of the swearword was absent in the mispronunciation, offense was still taken, showing that the form of the word is able to evoke emotional responses. In a previous study which measured the neural responses towards taboo words in the participants’ first and second languages, a greater neural response was found for the former. Though not conclusive, this study points towards a tendency of word forms to affect/control people’s cognitive processes, paralleling the theory of linguistic relativity.