Archives » Saturday, July 11, 2009
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Newsweek
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Jul 11, 2009 12:21 PM
By Ian Yarett
It’s the oldest prop gag in the world: man picks up hammer; man swings hammer. Man hammers thumb. That’s what Richard Stevens, a psychologist at Keele University in England, did. And just like countless men and women before and after him, he cursed. Loud and long, and it felt good.
In fact, so good that he wondered whether there might be something to the power of profanity—a curiosity that only increased when his wife, while participating in the miracle that is childbirth, swore like a drunken sailor.
So Stevens looked into it. And he discovered that uttering profanity may actually make one better able to withstand pain. In a study published in this month's issue of NeuroReport, he and his colleagues put that theory to the test. They asked participants to submerge their nondominant hand in ice-cold water for as long as possible (or for a maximum of 10 minutes) while either repeating a swear word or a neutral word (one that describes a table). The volume and pace used for swear words and neutral words were kept similar. Then, the researchers compared those who swore and those who didn’t to determine the effect on the length of time that participants were able to keep their hands submerged.
Subjects who swore managed an average of 40 seconds, or about a third longer than those who didn’t—evidence that a few well-placed word bombs of your choosing actually has a protective effect. The biological basis for this observation remains unclear, although the researchers suspect that since swearing is emotional language, it may lead to an increase in aggression and invoke the flight-or-flight response, which is associated with increased pain tolerance. “For some people, swearing is a rational response to pain that might make them feel better,” Stephens says.
As it turns out, swearing is not the only “bad” behavior with redeeming qualities. We found three other examples of unjustly maligned behavior that's actually good for you. Find out what they are after the jump.
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