Welcome to the Consortium for Research About Profanity

The Consortium for Research About Profanity is a collection of researchers working on understanding how profanity functions in minds, between people, and across societies.

Why make a Consortium?

Research into profanity is interesting and fun, but so far it has been conducted using disconnected small-scale projects. The questions posed and data collected in these research programs often vary wildly between groups and when collated do not clearly offer an understanding of the functions and processes of profanity. These small-scale projects have also tended to only investigate the effects of profanity in English, as such science does not have a clear understanding of how profanity influences our internal lives and social relationships beyond a typically Western and white background. On top of the issues with small-scale research teams, profanity related research has often lacked rigorous inquiry as it is a controversial behaviour. When taken together, these points mean that it has been difficult to come up with solid and useful theories about the ways profanity impacts our experiences in the real world. The Consortium will help to solve this problem by connecting networks of international researchers who can collaboratively develop and run research projects in a reproducible and transparent manner. As a group we benefit from one another’s diverse expertise in formulating experimental paradigms and in understanding and communicating the findings.