Euphemism-that is, softening words or phrases substituted for more direct language-has become pervasive in our everyday personal and professional lives. Leveraging theory and research on construal and framing effects, we conceptualize euphemism as a linguistic framing device that influences how observers construe situations and the people, groups, objects, and events within them. We then experimentally investigate the effects of euphemism as a linguistic framing device on third-party judgments about moral transgressions (i.e., bribery, fraud). Across studies (total N = 3,081) we find consistent evidence that employing euphemistic labels (relative to their noneuphemistic analogs) reduces the perceived severity of moral transgressions and, as a result, also reduces third-party motivations to punish transgressors. Overt experimental manipulations to reconstrue euphemistic labels into their noneuphemistic forms reduced, but did not entirely eliminate, the effects on moral severity and punishment judgments. Participants did not sufficiently adjust their judgments. These findings underscore the power of simple linguistic manipulations in influencing public opinion, and they have important implications for the possibility of creating a more just and fair society. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

---

委婉语作为一种强大的框架手段，影响道德判断和不当行为后的惩罚反应。


委婉语——即用柔和的词语或短语代替更直接的语言——已经在我们的日常生活和职业生活中变得普遍。利用解释和框架效应的理论和研究，我们将委婉语概念化为一种语言框架手段，影响观察者如何解释情境以及情境中的人、群体、物体和事件。然后，我们通过实验研究委婉语作为语言框架工具对第三方对道德违规（即贿赂、欺诈）判断的影响。在多项研究（总计 N = 3,081）中，我们发现一致的证据表明，使用委婉标签（相对于非委婉标签）可以降低人们对道德违规行为严重性的认知，从而减少第三方惩罚违规者的动机。将委婉标签重新解释为非委婉形式的公开实验操作减少了对道德严厉程度和惩罚判断的影响，但并没有完全消除。参与者没有充分调整自己的判断。这些发现强调了简单的语言操纵在影响公众舆论方面的力量，并且对于创建一个更加公正和公平的社会的可能性具有重要意义。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。