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sure to let slip curse words You may be seen falling into hot water at work or your parents may send you to wash your face with soap.
But swearing in There may actually be real benefits, according to a new study published in the journal American psychologist,
They found that cursing may be a “calorie-neutral” way to boost PeopleTheir physical performance helps them overcome their hesitations and push themselves harder while taking part in demanding physical activities,
“In many situations, people hold themselves back from using their full strength – intentionally or unintentionally,” he said Study Author Dr. Richard Stephens. “Swearing is a readily available way to help yourself feel centered, confident and less distracted, and a little more ‘go for it’.”
The team’s previous research has shown that when people swear, they perform better on a number of physical challenges, including how long they can keep their hands in ice water and how long they can support their body weight during a chair push-up exercise.
But Dr. Stephens wanted to understand why people might perform better when swearing. He believed that cursing could desensitize people’s mental state, which in turn could allow them to push themselves harder.
“We were working on the idea that one of the beneficial effects of swearing is that it desensitizes us in the moment and so we don’t step back, and delve deeper into the resources we have,” he explains. Independent,
To test the theory, researchers asked 192 people to repeat a swear word or a neutral word of their choice every two seconds while doing pushups on a chair. They were then asked about their mental state during the task.
The researchers found that participants who swore during a chair pushup task were able to maintain their body weight “significantly longer” than those who repeated neutral words.
They also measured several variables associated with decompensation and found an increase in all of them.
“One was distraction, so we wanted to know how repeating swear words distracted participants,” Dr. Stephens said. “Using emotional language distracts us, so we don’t have the ability to process the more negative thoughts we might have previously thought. Because of this, we become disengaged.”
The team also saw an increase in what they call “psychological flow,” a state of mind Dr. Stephens described as “being completely wrapped up in a task” and “not thinking about anything else.”
“It’s a pleasant situation – we feel in control of what we’re doing,” he said. “We think this is due to expanding our extroverted mindset, blocking out thoughts that might otherwise occur, meaning we experience more flow after swearing.”
They found that people also gained confidence after taking the oath, which allowed them to “forget all the bad things” and perform at their best.
“These findings help explain why abuse is so common,” Dr. Stephens said. “Swearing is virtually a calorie-neutral, drug-free, low-cost, readily available tool when we need a performance boost.”
According to co-author Nicholas Wachmuth of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the team now plans to research whether this boost from swearing also works in other contexts.
“Our labs are now studying how profanity affects public speaking and romantic approach behavior, two situations where people hesitate or second-guess themselves,” he said.
But Dr Stephens cautioned against using the findings to justify swearing in on any occasion. He said, “Attitudes towards oath-taking are changing, but you have to be careful.”
“Because once the abuse stops, the impact will probably stop. So it’s a bit of a balance.”
comes after this One study found People who swear a lot are more likely to be honest people. Researchers from the University of Cambridge, Maastricht University, the University of Hong Kong and Stanford studied the social interactions of 276 people in a lab, 73,789 people on Facebook, and measured the average profanity score against the Integrity Index for each US state.
They concluded that “a consistent positive relationship between profanity and honesty; profanity was associated with less lying and deception at the individual level and higher honesty at the society level”.