Psychology study finds no measurable harm from flagged phrases
1 Sep 17 · 6d ago · 3 posts · 5 comments · 3 sources · development 1 of 1
A new psychology study concluded that everyday phrases targeted by "harmful language guides" such as "master bedroom" do not cause measurable psychological harm, anxiety, or negative emotional effects for readers, including individuals from marginalized groups.
“I was pushed to use "Enslaved person" instead of "Slaves" in my masters thesis. I didn't fight it because it was ultimately part of an aside point anyway. But it struck me as the sort of overly academic language that strips away all emotional connection to the topic.”
BonerPorn, Reddit commenter · reddit ↗Psychology researchers Study authors
The whole story postscomments the bright band is this development · numbered dots are the others · click one to jump
What people said 11 voices · verbatim
-
P
DATE: September 17, 2026 at 06:00AM SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG ** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. ** ------------------------------------------------- TITLE: Is the phrase “master bedroom” actually harmful? A new psychology study says no…
-
I did a bit of a rabbit hole dive into this. I’m very interested in how marketing and advertising has shaped our culture. Like almost everything in American culture, the term comes from advertising. The term Master Bedroom is actually a marketing phrase first used in the Sears Catalog in 1926. It was used as a way to sell more elegant bed sheets…
-
Two things. I did say that we should not be needlessly offensive. Calling people names or using derogatory terms to refer to them would fall under that category. The problem I have with your comment is that I don’t know what the “f” word or “t” word are in the context of your comment. The fact that you cannot even use those words to describe the…
-
I was pushed to use "Enslaved person" instead of "Slaves" in my masters thesis. I didn't fight it because it was ultimately part of an aside point anyway. But it struck me as the sort of overly academic language that strips away all emotional connection to the topic and makes it seem more abstract and less bad. I'll change my mind when the movie…
-
brown bag talk because poor people (often minorities) would bring their lunches in a brown paper bag, so it's discriminatory against poor people and minorities Everyone brought their lunches in brown paper bags. It’s not like rich people had fancy lunch bags or something. I think this is from people sitting around, sniffing their own farts, and…
-
What are we talking about? Someone thought "master bedroom" might have been harmful, and then, here's the part I struggle with, someone else took that first person seriously? And checked?!
-
IIRC, the Aunt Jemima figure looked quite a bit more Mammy-ish decades ago, and then the designers gave her a makeover at some point. (Source: I'm old.)
-
It’s like Google believes if they virtue signal hard enough we will all forget that they utterly abandoned their whole ‘don’t be evil’ founding ideals
-
just a couple of people on twitter complaining 99% of all supposed cultural "backlash" is just a couple of people on twitter complaining.
-
I assumed something like this based on the stigma against left-handedness in language not corresponding to a real life stigma
-
I doubt it means that. Main/primary implies that there are other bedrooms you use, but that's not typical.
All 1 developments of Psychology study: 'master bedroom' and similar phrases… →
MastodonRedditHacker News