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.In fact, there is evidencethat when one patient was given fluvoxamine, his tics worsened and led him toproduce coprolalia (Delgado et al., 1990).In this case, drug-induced cursingwas the result of a neurological factor.The value of examining patients with mental disorders is that it helpspinpoint the brain regions associated with coprolalia.For the NPS Theory, thosemental disorders or dysfunctions with coprolalia implicate brain regions thatincrease the probability (+) of cursing for those with the disorders.These brainregions must play some role in the suppression (-) of cursing in normalspeakers.Neurological Control of Cursing 77How Is Physical Aggression Related to Verbal Aggression?Cursing can be understood as a form of aggression.To understand cursing,one must appreciate the neurological control of aggression.The primaryfunction of the amygdala is to mitigate anger and aggression.To understandanger at a neurological level, one has to look at the subcortical areas of thebrain, especially the amygdala, which also clearly produces anger and aggres-sion.Damage to the amygdala can result in the cessation of anger andaggression, which acts to decrease (-) the probability of cursing.Damage alsocan result in the inability to control anger and aggression, resulting in anincreased rate (+) of verbal aggression.Toward a Complete Neurological Theory of CursingA complete picture of the causal chain of cursing in the normal human brainimplicates the caudate nucleus, limbic system, amygdala, frontal lobe, andlanguage-association areas of the cortex.We know that some aphasic patientscan only utter curse words and not other kinds of speech.Other aphasicscannot understand or produce emotional expressions at all.But understandinghow neurological structures interact to produce normal cursing is a difficulttask (e.g., different patient populations have different forms of damage).In the future, brain researchers should observe cursing in a normal brainthrough PET, SPECT, and fMRI techniques.But even this brain-imagingtechnology has its problems: How do we get a person to produce an angrycurse on command? How do we compare the laboratory cursing to whathappens on the street?The goal of Part II is to identify the neural substrata in the production ofcursing.To try to understand cursing without appreciating brain function willleave an incomplete picture of the event.Although scholars outside of theneurosciences, in linguistics, sociology, and anthropology, can add to theunderstanding of cursing through their formal analyses, neuroscience is essen-tial for a complete understanding of cursing, according to the NPS Theory.In Part II the neural substrates in the NPS Theory that predict cursing havebeen examined.These neural systems are components of the Theory s condi-tional (if, then) grammar of cursing.Neural systems produce inhibitory (-) orexcitatory (+) processes.When a particular neurological condition exists, forexample when the amygdala is in a state of arousal, cursing is very likely (+) tobe produced.Part IIIPsychological Factors Underlying Cursing2.0 Cursing ability depends on psychological development.Part III describes the psychological factors that affect cursing.The psycho-logical analysis of cursing is necessary to describe how each person usescursing based on his or her psychological makeup (e.g., level of anxiety) andsocial learning history (e.g., being raised by religious parents).One s identityis realized through the use of language; one s approach to or style of cursing ispart of identity realization.From a psychological perspective, each personacquires a language and an identity through a collection of behaviors, habits,traits, abilities, and mental processes; these factors shape his or her cursing.Psychological factors are necessary, but not sufficient, to account for whypeople curse according to the NPS Theory; psychological factors are influ-enced by neurological processes and sociocultural constraints.Part III addresses five crucial psychological aspects of cursing: (a) lan-guage acquisition and cognitive development, (b) personal memory for curs-ing, (c) personality factors, especially religiosity and sex anxiety, (d) cursinghabits acquired through classical and operant learning, and (e) the sexuallexicon.Each of these five factors shapes how we acquire language, how wedevelop an individual identity through language use, and how we incorporateacts of cursing into a unique lifestyle and life view.At the psychological level,the functions of cursing are two-fold: to allow us to produce emotionalexpressions about the world and to allow us to comprehend other speakersemotional reactions to the world.Cursing provides for both emotional expres-sions about and emotional reactions to the world that create an aspect of self-awareness that noncurse words cannot provide  a deep emotional view ofthe world and the self.Thus, cursing is both an essential aspect of languageand at the same time, an essential aspect of how one acquires an emotionalidentity through language usage.Chapter 10Psychological Aspects of Cursing There are the many daily examples of taboo speech,usually profanities or obscenities, that express suchemotions as hatred, antagonism, frustration, and sur-prise.The most common utterances consist of singlewords or short phrases (though lengthy sequences mayoccur in  accomplished swearers), conveying differentlevels of intensity and attracting different degrees ofsocial sanction. 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