Is obscenity persuasive?

In all cultures, obscenity is a sign of bad education, and only reserved to the school yard, bar discussions and maybe the bedroom. But are there other situations where swearing could bring a positive outcome on the speaker?

A research paper entitled Indecent influence: The positive effects of obscenity on persuasion actually found that “the speeches with the swear word at the beginning or end were significantly more persuasive than the control speech […]. The speeches with the swear word in the beginning and end did not significantly differ from each other. Swearing also had a significant effect on participants’ perceptions of the intensity of the speaker [… and] swearing at the beginning or end of the speech led to significantly higher perceptions of speaker intensity than no swearing. “

Interestingly, the same study found that “[s]wearing did not significantly impact perceptions of speaker credibility“. 

Next time I’m facing a new client, I may just try the “Our localization services are the most cost-efficient for your company at this stage so why don’t you just take this pen and sign the contract, moron?” strategy. It would probably be safe to locate the exit beforehand though!

Finally, no such study has been done on written material, so I don’t know whether Samsung could revive their sales by letting users know that Galaxy are a much better choice than iPhone, bitches!