"Regular swearing at work can help boost team spirit among staff, allowing them to express better their feelings as well as develop social relationships, according to a study by researchers. Yehuda Baruch, a professor of management at the University of East Anglia, and graduate Stuart Jenkins studied the use of profanity in the workplace and assessed its implications for managers."
Swearing at work boosts team spirit (Yahoo! News) (Via Tom).
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From the paper 'Swearing at work and permissive leadership culture: When anti-social becomes social and incivility is acceptable' by Yehuda Baruch and Stuart Jenkins (published in Leadership & Organization Development Journal):
"Social swearing provides stress release for individuals, and helps to develop group norms and cohesion. This subsequently improves both individual and group well being. Conversely, annoyance swearing tends to increase stress for individuals, and hinders positive group norms and cohesion, hampering both individuals’ and groups’ well being."
I'm very curious to look through my data for examples of these two. I suspect I'll find some more lovely examples.
I'm looking forward to reading this paper thoroughly, and hope I find time to follow up this reference:
"Taking this point to the extreme, Wajnryb (2003) offers advice for executives who have to make staff redundant: “If you’re worried about which laid-off employee is going to show up with a semi-automatic and shoot up the office, be wary of the non-swearers”."
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