Swearing Provides Pain Relief, Say Scientists 230
Hugh Pickens writes "Scientific American reports that although cursing is notoriously decried in the public debate, scientists have discovered that swearing may serve an important function in relieving pain. 'Swearing is such a common response to pain that there has to be an underlying reason why we do it,' says Richard Stephens of Keele University in England. A study measured how long college students could keep their hands immersed in cold water. During the chilly exercise, they could repeat an expletive of their choice or chant a neutral word. When swearing, the 67 student volunteers reported less pain and on average endured about 40 seconds longer. How swearing achieves its physical effects is unclear, but the researchers speculate that brain circuitry linked to emotion is involved. Earlier studies have shown that unlike normal language, which relies on the outer few millimeters in the left hemisphere of the brain, expletives hinge on evolutionarily ancient structures buried deep inside the right half like the amygdala, an almond-shaped group of neurons that can trigger a fight-or-flight response in which our heart rate climbs and we become less sensitive to pain."
Re:It's not complicated. (Score:0, Informative)
Lol. I REALLY don't feel sorry for anyone who makes over 250k,and that includes you, asshole.
There's a catch (Score:3, Informative)
There is a catch, though: The more we swear, the less emotionally potent the words become, Stephens cautions. And without emotion, all that is left of a swearword is the word itself, unlikely to soothe anyone's pain.
Re:Relevant to Tourrett's syndrome? (Score:3, Informative)
See: Copralalia [wikipedia.org]
Swearing feels good. That's why we do it. Not surprising that some people with Tourette's do it uncontrollably.
Re:I call bullshit... (Score:3, Informative)
Have you tried doing this with a bowl full of really salty water and crushed ice?
Re:Well #@%$ me. (Score:3, Informative)
If this study is true, that must mean I'm one of the most 'pain free' people I know.
from the article:
There is a catch, though: The more we swear, the less emotionally potent the words become, Stephens cautions. And without emotion, all that is left of a swearword is the word itself, unlikely to soothe anyone's pain.
Re:Selection Bias? (Score:4, Informative)
I was wondering that myself -- obviously if they were self-selecting, the results are worthless. (Or rather, they tell us something interesting, but that something isn't what the article claims.) So I read the journal article, and speaking as a biostatistician, I'm pretty happy with the study design. They did in fact randomize into experimental and control groups, and did a repeated measures design, i.e., all participants were in both swearing and non-swearing groups but the order was randomized, so one subject might be in the swearing group first and then the non-swearing group, while another might be in non-swearing and then swearing. If you happen to be a student or faculty at a school with a library with access to the journal, it's worth reading; it's a nice, almost textbook example of how to report this kind of work.
Wrongsies (Score:4, Informative)
The conclusion is OK, the details presented suffer. That's common in pop-science writing, and sadly increasingly common in SciAm.
Left side = language: Based on the largest group of similar orientation, right handed males. Not even a majority -- 40%. Left handed males are right-side language almost the same proportion but are few overall. There are 'ipsilateral language' (same side as dominant hand, as opposed to 'contralateral', other-side), as well as 'undifferentiated', with language capability on both sides. Females are somewhat similar in breakdown but more undifferentiated overall. Also, the generalization is for non-tonal based languages such as English. See "right/other side" below.
Amygdala is "under the right": The amygdala is bilateral, with left and right parts. The right part is however functionally predisposed to processing stress handling behavior http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6SYP-4CT63XM-3&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=955088512&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=7d34a0fd5e2952f900c2698ce0abe684 [sciencedirect.com] .
Left cortex vs. right deep: All language functions are handled in the outer few millimeters of the brain, the cortex. Some processes may be driven by deep structures, but all higher order processing relies on cortical activity.
Right/other side cortex: Opposite (or mixed with, in 'undifferentiated' brains) the language centers there is an equally employed structure that controls "prosidy", or emotional processing, understanding and expression in language. It is more oriented to tonal processing making it central to music as well as to tonal-based languages. "Right side" or prosidic region damage can result in flat monotone response to expression about both winning the lottery and death of a loved one. Or it can result in inappropriate response, such as laughter, to everything.
If you consider the necessity of 'other-side' processing in tonal language and the large population that uses it, the western/English, right handed, males, contralateral language center "dominance" becomes a great deal less world wide (there are brains world wide, honest) than the 40% usually quoted in western language research literature and texts.
Moving the expresssion of distress from the language structure dominant area to the prosidic/emotional area does tap into underlying emotion processing. Then again, so would singing. I'd like to see replication with singing instead of cursing -- betcha it's similar in outcome. Evidence: stuttering is stress based; stutters frequently don't stutter when they sing, ask (according to his belt buckle) M-M-M-M-Mel Tillis. And, a naive hypothesis: I'd bet that while those that use tonal languages may curse in pain and such, they are far more likely to use coherent language with stress (in both senses) placed in the tonal aspect of what they're expressing. Any speakers or Chinese dialects or other east Asian languages care to comment?
Lastly, an aside: The 'left side' language centers make the brain larger on the left. This is taken as a dominance of language processing over other kinds. However (1) chimps have the same assymetry, with the same proportion of 'other-sided-language', larger on the right, as with humans; (2) cortical localization is both redundant (more than one area can do the job) and plastic (one can take over when another fails); and (3) the amount of cortex devoted to something implies it requires that much effort. The same amount of processing and behavioral control can be handled by smaller areas when the processing is made mo
Re:SLOW FUCKING JAVASCRIPT (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well #@%$ me. (Score:5, Informative)
I can't remember which papers support that statement, but a Google search reveals (at least) one paper claiming that bilinguals curse more often in their dominant languages [bbk.ac.uk] (and while I haven't read it, I expect they controlled for frequency of use). If one of the purposes of swearing is to relieve emotional tension, that conclusion would make the most sense if swearing in your dominant language provided a greater emotional release. It wouldn't surprise me too much if the same thing was true for pain.
More "fuck" research (Score:3, Informative)
Then you might like this other research [ssrn.com] about the word "fuck". In fact, that's the name of the article.
Re:Swearing is good for us, eh? (Score:2, Informative)
Blocking that domain also blocks many images. I find it effective enough to only block http://c.fsdn.com/sd/all-minified.js [fsdn.com]?
Re:Well #@%$ me. (Score:2, Informative)
Now that I think about it the reason is probably that swearing in English feels more mild (and more socially acceptable). I generally switch to swearing in Finnish only when I'm truly upset.
Re:Aphasia (Score:3, Informative)
Well, if you've been doin' the swearing for her... she just hasn't developed any backbone. Time to let her grow up a bit and take on the responsibility of swearing on her own when she needs it. ;)
Seriously... little kids tend to cry or not cry when hurt or surprised, depending on what they believe their parents *expect* them to do. By now it's a little late to control which reaction she's habituated to, and she may be using it for attention without realizing it, or simply doing what she thinks you expect, also without conscious thought.