MacEwan researcher's study challenges harm claims for common language guides

A study co-authored by Edmonton-based psychology professor Scott Semenyna suggests a cluster of words academics and professionals were told to avoid might not be as harmful as language guides claim—a finding Semenyna expects will provoke fierce debate.

Semenyna and former colleagues at Stetson University in Florida tested whether harmful-language guides from the American Psychological Association were correctly identifying words that caused genuine harm to readers. Some terms felt obviously inappropriate; others like "master bedroom" raised questions about whether they could truly damage people.

"We were told that we weren't supposed to say words like 'pipeline' because it could remind people of the oil industry. We weren't supposed to say terms like 'victim,'" Semenyna said. "If there's measurable harm here, we should be able to find that."

The guides offered best-practice alternatives that the research team tested: "breastfeeding" replaced with "chestfeeding," "pregnant woman" swapped for "birthing person."

In the first phase, 616 people rated 175 harmful words and recommended alternatives. Pejorative words—slurs and insults—ranked highest for discomfort. Outside that category, many words flagged as harmful by language guides weren't ranked as harmful by participants.

For the second phase, researchers used AI to create two short stories—one using words from the guides, another using recommended alternatives. Participants randomly assigned to read one story then completed surveys measuring reading comprehension, anxiety, and emotional well-being.

Result: no significant or measurable harm in the majority of readers across both stories. In some cases, writing using alternatives was difficult for people to understand.

When the team looked specifically at racial minorities, LGBTQIA+ people, and those with disabilities, findings suggested these groups were no more negatively impacted by the flagged words than others. The only group that reported negative feelings: those scoring higher on what researchers call "moral elitism"—people who view themselves as especially righteous and use that as a social strategy to gain credibility.

Semenyna emphasized the findings shouldn't be read as permission to be careless with words, impolite or rude. "Conversations around harmful language have been polarizing in recent years," Semenyna noted, adding that journal refusals during submission intensified the irony. "When submitting to publications, our research was outright refused by a number of academic journals because of the topic or because we'd included some of those harmful words."