Does Swearing Alleviate Pain?

May 24

Swearing to Alleviate Pain

Israel Edery, et, al.

Brooklyn College

Abstract

Given the fact that (in general) our society still frowns upon people who swear often, learning that research has proven that in some instances swearing can actually be helpful was somewhat surprising (Stephens et, al., 2009; Stephens, & Robertson, 2020). We, therefore, decided to conduct an experiment similar to those done before in an attempt to expand our understanding of the possible benefits of swearing. In a between-groups 2x2 factorial design, we studied the effects of swearing vs. not swearing on subjective levels of pain/discomfort. Levels of pain were assessed through a survey given to the subjects following an experimental task that involved them having to place either one or two hands in icy water. Half of the participants were allowed to swear while their hands were in the water and the other half were only allowed to vocalize neutral, non-swear words. Group reports were compared to see if swearing resulted in lower reported levels of pain. Contrary to our hypotheses, no main effect of swearing - indicating lower levels of pain in the groups permitted to swear - was detected. Likewise, no main effect of hands - two hands having higher levels of pain, or an interaction effect indicating more pain relief when swearing with two hands in the ice - have been detected. Due to a number of significant limitations this study was subject to, we conclude that this study does not provide strong evidence against previous studies and further research is needed for informed conclusions to be made.

Introduction

Studies regarding swearing in individuals with neurological disorders such as Tourette’s Syndrome and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) indicate that the use of swear words is near-universal and has been around for many years (Van Lancker & Cummings, 1999). Swearing is defined as the use of taboo language conveying connotative information (Jay & Janschewitz, 2008). Although it is common to swear in response to physical or emotional pain, whether swearing is actually helpful in tolerating or reducing pain is not universally known. Previous studies have explored whether swearing is a maladaptive stress response, or it in fact facilitates a “hypoalgesic” or pain-lessening effect while in a state of discomfort (Stephens et, al., 2009). In one such study investigating whether swearing indeed affects one’s subjective levels of pain, researchers compared reports of perceived pain following two experimental sessions where participants were asked to place a hand in icy water. In one session, they were asked to repeat a swear word while their hand was immersed in the ice water, and in the other session they were given a neutral word to repeat instead (Stephens et, al., 2009). The results indicated that indeed swearing had a pain-lessening effect when compared with a neutral word (Stephens et, al., 2009). Later studies have attempted to map out the reason for this hypoalgesic effect of swearing, exploring different variables that might play a role (Stephens, & Robertson, 2020). Biological and psychological causes including heart rate, emotion, humor, and distraction were considered (Stephens, & Robertson, 2020). The exact mechanisms underlying the apparent usefulness of taboo language are still being explored.

Our study focuses directly on the phenomena of hypoalgesia and swearing without going into the specific reasons behind the perceived effects of swearing on pain. Following a similar structure to the experiments preceding this one, the way we induced pain was by having our participants place their hands in ice water for a specified amount of time (Stephens et, al., 2009 had their subjects leave their hand in the ice for as long as possible. To reduce discomfort, we implemented a time stamp for the duration of the ice water task). Through random assignment, each participant was into four experimental groups as we will discuss. Our method of measuring the discomfort levels of the participants was by having them fill out a simple pain assessment survey immediately after they participated in the ice water activity.

There are a few ways in which our experimental design differed from previous models. The modifications that we chose were aimed at possibly revealing the effects of swearing in instances that have not been studied previously. Unlike previous experiments which assessed swearing vs. not swearing but held the level of discomfort constant (i.e. one hand in ice water for all conditions), we created two levels of discomfort (one hand in ice vs. two hands in ice) in addition to the two conditions of “swearing” and “no swearing” (Stephens et, al., 2009). The purpose of adding a second level of discomfort was to see if higher levels of pain produced substantially different reports for those who were allowed to swear. We also decided to set up our experiment and analysis in a between-groups manner. This means that instead of having each individual repeat the experiment under different conditions and then comparing their resulting scores, we had separate groups for each condition and our analysis compared the ratings of each group with the other. The participants were asked to place either one or two hands into a bucket of icy water.

In sum, our experiment consisted of a 2x2 between-groups factorial (-multiple IV’s) design with two independent variables and one dependent variable. The first independent variable was whether the subject was allowed to swear while their hand(s) was in the water, and the second was whether they were instructed to place one or two hands in the icy water. The dependent variable was the reported level of discomfort collected from the participants. Three main effects were being tested. Firstly, whether swearing while in pain (hand(s) in ice) reduces reported levels of discomfort. Second, an increased effect of pain in two vs. one hand in the water. And finally, an interaction effect between “hands” and “swearing”, indicating that swearing had a stronger effect when two hands were in the water. To test these three effects, a total of four groups were proposed. Swearing-one hand, swearing-two hands, no swearing-one hand, no swearing-two hands.

Based on the results of previous studies, we predicted a main effect of swearing on levels of pain, indicating reduced levels of pain for those who were allowed to swear while their hands were in the ice water (Stephens et, al., 2009). Likewise, we predicted that we’d see a main effect of one hand vs. two hands in the water - simply based on the rationale that having one hand in icy water is not as bad as having two. For the interaction effect, we reasoned that if swearing helps with distress then the more pain a person is in, the more relief they will find when being allowed to swear (as opposed to being restricted to neutral words alone). Hence, we hypothesized that we would observe in our data analysis two main effects and one interaction effect.

Methods

Participants

Our participants consisted of a diverse group of individuals (N=23) ranging from ages 18-30. Recruitment for this project occurred primarily through the outreach of the researchers to individuals who seemed likely to be willing to participate. No incentive or payment was given to the participants.

Materials

Materials for this project included a physical consent form, a bucket of ice water (1-2 gallons), a timer to track time of hand(s) in water, towels for drying hands, a physical post-experiment survey, and pens for filling out said forms. The data was gathered and uploaded to a google spreadsheet that was shared among the researchers and then transferred to the Jamovi software to conduct the ANOVA.

Procedure

Participants were gathered at multiple sites and were briefed about the purpose and general procedure of the study. After signing a consent form, each participant was randomly assigned to one of four groups; swearing-one hand, swearing-two hands, no swearing-one hand, no swearing-two hands. The “swearing” groups were told that they can vocalize any swear word they preferred while their hands were in the ice water, while the “no swearing” groups were asked not to vocalize any curse words. Additionally, half of the individuals within both categories of “swearing” and “no swearing” were asked to place two hands in the ice water while the other half were asked to place only one hand. All participants placed their hand or hands in the ice water for approximately twenty seconds. (This may seem like a trivial amount of time, but it was actually a pretty disturbing experience for most of the participants). After placing their hands in the water for twenty seconds, the participants dried their hands and were requested to fill out a brief survey while the memory of the event was still fresh. The survey document included questions about age, gender, the experimental condition they were randomly assigned to (i.e. “swearing-one hand, etc.), and a rating scale from 1-7 inquiring about levels of discomfort throughout the session (Figure #1).

Results

After the data was collected, it was uploaded to the Jamovi software where we ran an ANOVA to learn about the results of our 2x2 factorial experiment (Table #1). Contrary to our predictions, the analysis did not reveal a main effect of swearing (df=1, F=0.203, p=0.658), or hands (df=1, F=1.050, p=0.318), or an interaction effect between swearing and hands (df=1, F=0.726, p=0.405) (Table #1). This means that the ratings of subjective discomfort were relatively similar across all experimental conditions or groups. This can also be seen in the resulting descriptive statistics from our data which indicate similar mean ratings across all conditions (Table #2). Going through the means and standard deviations from each group, here’s what the descriptive results look like: swearing-one hand (M=4.50, SD=1.64), swearing-two hands (M=5.67, SD=1.51), no swearing-one hand (M=4.75, SD=1.71), no swearing-two hands (M=4.86, SD=1.07)(Table #2). As evident in the descriptives, all of the ratings fell in the 4-5 range with a pretty narrow deviation scale of lower than 2 units for all groups.

Discussion

In this study, we aimed to replicate and expand upon previous studies about swearing as it pertains to pain reduction during a time of distress (Stephens et, al., 2009). We designed a between-groups experiment, comparing a swearing and non-swearing group with an added element of one vs. two hands in the ice water, for a total of four groups measuring two independent variables. After the participants placed their hands in a bucket of icy water for twenty seconds, they filled out a survey where they rated their level of discomfort while their hands were in the water. The extent of discomfort, rated on a scale from 1-7, was the dependent variable of interest. We hypothesized that we would detect an effect of swearing, hands, and hands*swearing. However, unlike our hypothesis and what has been demonstrated in previous studies, our data analysis did not detect any main effect or interaction effect (Table #1). This means that there was no significant difference found between the reported levels of discomfort between those who were allowed to swear and those who were not. Similarly, we did not detect a statistically significant difference in pain levels between those who had one hand in the ice water in comparison to those who had two hands in the water. Finally, we did not detect an interaction between hands*swearing that would indicate a higher level of relief when having two hands in the ice water and being allowed to swear.

Although the results of our experiment do not indicate that swearing has an effect on pain reduction, we don’t believe that our results necessarily negate previous findings. There are many possible reasons why any experiment would fail to detect statistically significant results. In our scenario, there are a few details that stood out to us as possible reasons for our unexpected outcome. Below there are some of these limitations that came to mind.

Limitations

As noted earlier, our study differed from previous studies on the topic of the effects of taboo vocabulary in multiple ways. Besides the low number of participants (N=23) which makes it more difficult to detect significant effects, there’s another key difference that may have strongly impacted the results of our experiment. Because we (the researchers) wanted to make it easy for participants to join the experiment, we set up the experiment in a way that would not take up much time from the participants. An easy way to do this was to make our design between-groups. In this manner, each participant was placed in one experimental condition and following their 2-3 minute participation they were free to leave. Although this method was helpful for recruiting subjects, this also meant that our analysis was less sound because we were comparing the scores of separate individuals (who may have scored in different ways) instead of comparing the scores of each individual to their own scores under each condition. Another factor that may have impacted the consistency of our results was the fact that the experiment was done in multiple sites and the instructions for the experiment were different based on the site where the experiment was done and the researcher who took the lead at that location. Finally, since the experiment was not conducted in a controlled lab setting, there was also a social aspect that could have interfered. Most subjects did the experiment in front of other people. This may have led to a level of discomfort or distraction during the experiment - especially for those in the swearing groups since swearing is still viewed by many as a sin or form of improper behavior. As a result, the reports of levels of discomfort that we collected could have been influenced by other contributing factors other than swearing alone.

Conclusions

Swearing is common and universal yet still carries strong negative connotations for many people. Movies are still categorized by whether there is swearing in them and many parents try to avoid using curse words in front of their children. Given how society looks at swearing, it is quite surprising that researchers have found that swearing can be useful under certain circumstances (Stephens et, al., 2009; Stephens, & Robertson, 2020). This is an example where science goes against conventional wisdom and surprisingly, not many people know about these findings. Although the findings in this study did not confirm previous findings, they did do not contradict them either and we maintain that studies addressing the potential benefits (and harm) of the use of taboo language are extremely relevant and important. I think that it would be interesting to explore swearing among younger populations and see if frequent usage of swear words is correlated with academic or professional outcomes (in either direction - positive, negative, etc.). I also wonder if the hypoalgesic effects of swearing are the reason that swearing is so common in military or endurance training. While it is true that these questions may seem simplistic, I believe that it is possible that further scientific research on swearing may reveal that it is not as bad as people make it out to be. Furthermore, we may learn that at times cursing could actually help reduce emotional or physical distress, and if this is indeed the case, this may shift the current negative perspective that society sometimes holds against those who swear - to a more accepting and understanding one.

References

Van Lancker, & Cummings, J. . (1999). Expletives: neurolinguistic and neurobehavioral perspectives on swearing. Brain Research Reviews, 31(1), 83–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0165-0173(99)00060-0

Jay T., Janschewitz K. (2008). The pragmatics of swearing. J. Politeness Res. Lang. Behav. Cult. 4 267–288. https://doi.org/10.1515/JPLR.2008.013

Stephens, Richard; Atkins, John; Kingston, Andrew Swearing as a response to pain, NeuroReport: August 5, 2009 - Volume 20 - Issue 12 - p 1056-1060 doi: 10.1097/WNR.0b013e32832e64b1

Stephens, R., & Robertson, O. (2020). Swearing as a Response to Pain: Assessing Hypoalgesic Effects of Novel "Swear" Words. Frontiers in psychology, 11, 723. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00723

Tables & Figures

Table #1