If you want a nimble and easy way of learn just how many curse word a person eff , try stand on their foot . Being in nuisance can do interesting thing to our language , but could that burst of obscenities in reality be helpful ? New research suggest that both crude run-in and gestures could have a pain - reducing effect .

The study include 111 bookman at Kalamazoo College in Michigan , 61 percent of whom identified as fair sex , with an average years of 19 . Pain was inflicted using a well - know experimental method called thecold pressor task , in which a somebody ’s hand is immersed in ice pee for as long as they can tolerate it .

The study was design to quantify the effect of speech communication and gestures , both “ electroneutral ” and “ tabu ” , on pain perception . In the language arm of the survey , participants were expect to say either “ fuck ” or “ flat ” over and over while their hand was submerse in the cold H2O . In the gesture arm , they were tell to stick to either their middle finger ( taboo ) or index finger ( neutral ) up and down .

The player were told to tell the experimenter as soon as they felt pain so that the time could be recorded . After the trial , they completed a pain military rank scale leaf and a Holy Writ completion job designed to measure feelings of aggression .

establish on former inquiry , the scientists hypothesized that either flipping the bird ordropping the F - bombevery second would have an analgesic core . And that appeared to be the casing .

“ We find that prosecute in a taboo act [ … ] enable participants to withstand the infliction in a cold vasoconstrictive task for importantly longer than engaging in a neutral act , ” the author write in their paper .

More surprising was that there was no significant difference between the motion or the language . Previous survey have shown that using swear words is tie in topain tolerance , and some have even suggest this as a potential reason for the flow of funky language that often emanates fromlabor and delivery suite . But as to why an raunchy motion work just as well , the scientists are less indisputable .

One theory the authors propose is that the cognitive process of make the center finger gesture activates the same neuronal pathways as uttering the discussion “ fuck ” . It ’s also potential that it evokes exchangeable feelings and emotions without activating the word itself , but more research is needed to disentangle this .

The generator found no grounds from their sketch that the analgesic effect of oath had anything to do with aggression , but point out that this could be a flaw in the subject area conception : “ we can not reign out the opening that aggression might be involved ; perhaps our word stem completion and heart rate measures were not tender enough to find changes in aggressiveness . ”

But there could have been another unintended upside to the cellular inclusion of the word of honor culmination project – it seemed to distract the subjects from the existent purpose of the study , meaning they were less likely to unconsciously shift their behavior to match what they thought the experimenters desire to see . For this ground , the authors commend include a interchangeable cognitive task in future studies as a minute of a cerise herring , if for no other intent .

Ultimately , it ’s still not clear-cut why swearing helps boil down pain perception , but this bailiwick is the latest in a string of investigation that have establish this effect – and crucially , the authors say it ’s the first to exhibit that flipping someone off can have the same painkilling power as yelling “ Fuck ! ” at the top of your lung . deserving remembering the next clock time you stub your toe in a subroutine library .

The study is publish in the journalPsychological Reports .

[ H / T : Psychology Today ]