Term of Award

Spring 1978

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (restricted to Georgia Southern)

Department

Department of Psychology

Committee Chair

Georgelle Thomas

Committee Member 1

Shirley W. Osgood

Committee Member 2

Richard L. Rogers

Abstract

Fifteen females matched the sound pressure of a monaurally presented 3000 Hz tone and numbers to the offensiveness of a series of slang words obtained from a list used by Baudhuin (1973). The geometric means of the sound pressure levels were plotted against the geometric means of numbers on semi-log coordinates. Results indicated that a power function relationship exists between sound pressure and numbers matched to the offensiveness of these words; thus, the offensiveness of slang words can be measured by direct scaling techniques. A significant positive correlation (rrho(10)=.976, p<.005) between the levels of the two continua (numbers and sound pressure level) matched to the offensiveness of slang words indicates the high degree of agreement between these matches. The sound pressure levels obtained in the present study were found to be correlated (rrho(10)=.564, p<.05) with the semantic differential evaluations Baudhuin (1973) obtained.

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