Is the phrase “master bedroom” actually harmful? A new psychology study says no

A recent psychology study published in the Journal of Open Inquiry in the Behavioral Sciences suggests that the phrase "master bedroom" is not harmful and does not negatively affect people's psychological well-being. The research challenges the widespread use of harmful language guides, which aim to ban or discourage the use of certain everyday words.

Lead researcher Michael A. Eskenazi from Stetson University explained that while there may be some words that society has deemed reprehensible, there are many others with unclear levels of harm. The study involved two experiments with 616 and 334 adult participants, respectively. Participants rated 175 pairs of words and phrases, with one term being a commonly targeted one.

The results showed that people generally found the alternative words slightly more acceptable, but the majority of the targeted words were still rated as highly acceptable. Only a small fraction generated negative ratings, mostly for recognized slurs or pejoratives. A second experiment tested if these words cause psychological harm by having participants read a story containing or excluding 25 targeted terms.

The findings indicated that exposure to the targeted language did not increase anxiety, decrease feelings of belonging, or lower positive emotions. In fact, the group exposed to the harmful language scored slightly higher in reading comprehension. The study also found that marginalized groups were no more negatively affected by the language than non-marginalized participants.

The study suggests that most people do not view most of the targeted words as problematic, and the meanings of words can change over time.