Maledictology (from Latin maledicere, "to say [something] (dicere) bad (male)" and Greek logia, "study of") is a branch of psychology, that does research about cursing and blustering. It is influenced by American psychologist Timothy Jay (Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts) and the philologist and researcher in swearwords  Reinhold Aman (California). They assume that swearing and blustering is part of the human life. According to this, it can even act as a passive self-defense, as it prevents palpable argument.