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President Donald Trump
Why Trump’s “Private Parts” Comments Were Seen as Wrong
The Evolution of Offensive Behavior and Swearing
Posted March 6, 2016
To many people, Donald Trump’s recent comments regarding his own private parts during an internationally televised Republican debate marked something of a tipping point. These remarks sort of passed some kind of implicit threshold – and many people used words such as “disgusting” and “embarrassment” in describing this situation. I have to say, I’m pretty hard to offend – yet I found myself offended by that whole thing.
The Evolutionary Psychology of Offensive Language and Gestures
Based on the work of Steven Pinker (2008) and others, we can understand why such inappropriate communication is, in fact, so offensive. And we can understand how context plays a major role in how people react to such stimuli.
In an insightful and thorough evolution-laden analysis of the psychology of swear words, Pinker starts by discussing the point that swear words seem to permeate languages across the globe (see Ljung, 2011). Swearing is something of a human universal. Further, swear words and behaviors that are considered rude and inappropriate have common themes – they often connect facets of sexuality with negative images or emotions. And such connections, across languages and cultures, tend to elicit negative emotions. In short, Pinker’s evolutionary analysis of swearing and offensive behavior is that such words and gestures (a) pertain to evolutionarily significant life domains (such as sexuality) and (b) they are laden with negative emotional features.
Assessing Impulsivity in Others
Someone’s level of swearing and inappropriate behavior, then, can be used as something of a marker of impulsivity. People vary from one another in terms of impulsivity and (see Paulsen & Johnson, 1980) – and in our social interactions, we often acquire information about the impulsivity of others. Highly impulsive individuals have difficulty in many life domains, such as in school, at work, or in intimate relationships, and the ability to make accurate judgments about others’ levels of impulsivity is a crucial part of social life and social perception. Our ancestors who were good at selecting relatively controlled, non-impulsive social partners were likely to reap social benefits from such decisions.
As Pinker (2008) points out, the over-use of swearing and of inappropriate gestures is a sign of poor impulse control – and, for this reason, we often find it socially abhorrent. Such language and gestures inherently include elements of strong negative emotions – and someone who over-uses such language and gestures, then, essentially sprays his or her social community with negative affect. At the same time, someone who overuses such language and gestures provides clear signals about him or herself as having poor impulse control.
Context and Inappropriate Language
Humans are highly sensitive to context – and during our development, we come to figure out what kinds of behaviors are appropriate under what kinds of conditions. A joke about celebrating some accomplishment with shots of tequila might be appropriate with a group of close colleagues at work – the same joke would probably be seen as inappropriate and perhaps abnormal if made at a ten-year-old’s birthday party. All the work in human evolutionary psychology (see Geher, 2014) speaks to how incredibly context-sensitive all facets of human behavior are.
So when someone uses swear words or rude gestures in a small group of close adult friends on a Friday night at the local pub, that’s not really considered outrageous. This said, when someone is looking to his peers around the nation for support in taking on the position of the leadership of the nation, such language and gestures are, of course, importantly considered in context.
When Donald Trump “went there” during the Republican debate on Thursday, March 4, he crossed a line that has clear evolutionary relevance. Perhaps his language and concomitant gestures would have been fine with a group of buddies at the pub on a Friday night – but that’s not where he was. He was on stage in the most public forum possible – speaking to the world. In an effort to become the primary leader the USA.
Donald Trump, Impulse Control, and Context-Sensitive Decisions
Putting it all together, we can get a more clear picture of why Trump’s language and gestures at the March 4 GOP debate were so bothersome to so many people. Hey, if you’re at the bar with your buddies on a Friday night and that’s the kind of language you’d like to use – go for it – that’s your business. But perhaps the reason that so many people expressed outrage, disgust, and embarrassment regarding this situation is precisely because it took place during the debate. This feature of the situation brought into question, to the minds of many, issues regarding Trump’s impulsivity.
And, importantly, there could be liabilities associated with having a president who is exceptionally impulsive. Further, this situation brought into question Trump’s ability to make context-appropriate decisions. The president of the USA needs to make many important decisions each and every day – decisions that potentially affect billions and the future of all of our children. Perhaps people responded negatively to his inappropriate language partly because this behavior on his part was a signal that might predict his future inability to effectively exercise judgment that is appropriately informed by contextual factors.
Bottom Line
When Donald Trump “went there” – making comments about his private parts – during an internationally televised debate on March 4, many people commented that he had crossed a threshold. Work in the field of evolutionary psychology helps us understand why people reacted this way. Inappropriate sexual language and gesturing activates our negative emotion system. Further, as social perceivers, we use information about swearing and inappropriate behaviors to make inferences about the stability and impulsivity of others. Finally, as members of a highly context-sensitive species, we are especially attuned to the context that surrounds the behaviors of others – and this process helps us learn about the judgment and overall character of others in our social worlds. If someone makes a joke about private parts with a few buddies at a fraternity party, that’s one thing. But when a presidential candidate makes such a joke on the world stage during an internationally televised debate – this is another thing altogether.
References
Geher, G. (2014). Evolutionary Psychology 101. New York: Springer.
Ljung, M. (2011). Swearing: A Cross-Cultural Linguistic Study. New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Paulsen K, Johnson M (1980) Impulsivity: A multidimensional concept with developmental aspects. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 8, 269–277.
Pinker, S. (2008). The stuff of thought: Language as a window into human nature. New York: Penguin.
