Oh $#*%! Cursing can reduce pain perception

Screaming a profanity when you suddenly experience acute pain—such as striking your head on an open cabinet door—is commonplace. But did you know that such an abrupt vocal outburst of four-letter words was actually beneficial to the unsuspecting victim? Such were the conclusions that researchers from the Keele University School of Psychology in Staffordshire, UK came to, after subjecting volunteers to painful stimuli under controlled laboratory conditions.

In a study published in NeuroReport, the researchers hypothesized that cursing would increase pain perception and decrease tolerance, since swearing had been assumed to be a maladaptive response. But instead, the researchers found that, "people withstood a moderately to strongly painful stimulus for significantly longer if they repeated a swear word rather than a non-swear word."

Participants were asked to name "five words you might use after hitting yourself on the thumb with a hammer," and were then told to use the first swear word on the list while submerging one hand in ice-cold water. As a control, participants were asked for "five words to describe a table," and then used the word that corresponded in order with the swear word. Males and females had a similar reduction in pain perception, with women experiencing somewhat greater pain reduction and increased heart rate while cursing.

Here's an excerpt from the study for some background on the science of cursing:

"Swearing, the use of offensive or obscene language, occurs in most human cultures. People swear to let off steam, to shock or insult, or out of habit. Cathartic swearing may occur in painful situations, for example giving birth or hitting one's thumb with a hammer. Swearing is also one symptom of the disinhibition in frontal lobe syndrome. For example, the famous frontal lobe patient Phineas P. Gage is said to have become ‘fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity'. Anecdotally (we found no supporting evidence in the literature), some pain theorists view swearing as a sign of ‘pain-related catastrophising', which may be defined as a maladaptive response in which negative and unhelpful thoughts and ideas are brought to bear when pain is experienced. We wondered why swearing, a supposedly maladaptive response to pain, is such a common pain response."

As they found out in the end, it's likely common because it works. The researchers speculate that cursing may induce a "fight or flight" response that triggers aggression, which may increase pain tolerance.

Too bad they didn't report on which words were used—I'd love to know which ones have been "clinically proven in university studies." And, as our chief medical adviser pointed out, a hierarchy of swear words could have made the experiment dose-related.

I guess we'll have to wait for follow up studies.

—Kevin McCarthy, associate editor