You Can Usually Tell How Resilient Someone Is By How Often They Swear, According To Study
PeopleImages | ShutterstockPeople usually think there's nothing productive about using foul language. In fact, from a young age, we're taught that bad words are something that shouldn't be spoken in public or even at all.
A study published in American Psychologist, however, found that there is actually a direct link between swearing and how resilient a person is. So, it might actually be a good thing for a person to let a few curse words fly every now and again.
You can usually tell how resilient someone is by how often they swear.
Moments when a person needs to put their best foot forward are often the same moments when people hold themselves back, whether they're aware of it or not. By doing so, it often limits the extent of their achievements and success.
Study author Richard Stephens and his colleagues claimed that in situations where people hold themselves back, a psychological boost that leads to a more "disinhibited" state might actually produce better outcomes. Guess what can help create a disinhibited state? Yup, swear words!
They conducted two experiments to test this. Participants in the first experiment were 88 adults recruited from the study authors’ university campus community.
The study authors asked them to perform chair push-ups under two conditions: once while repeating a swear word of their choice and once while repeating a neutral word. The results of the first experiment showed that chair push-up hold times were longer when participants were repeating the swear word.
Swearing was found to boost success among participants in the study.
"These findings suggest that swearing promotes psychological states conducive to maximizing effort and overcoming internal constraints. These effects have potential implications for athletic performance, rehabilitation, and contexts requiring courage or assertiveness," the study authors concluded.
Continuing, "As such, swearing may represent a low-cost, widely accessible psychological intervention to help individuals 'not hold back' when peak performance is needed."
By conducting the experiment, researchers concluded that swearing improved participants' physical performance. Not only that, but it seemingly enhanced their self-confidence and allowed their brains to focus on something other than the pain and fatigue.
There are surprising health benefits to swearing.
Trying to suppress the urge to curse might actually be doing you a disservice. Not only can it help you be more resilient when completing tasks and performances that may be challenging, but it can also deeply improve your health.
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A study in a 2022 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology even found that when people repeated a swear word while given a difficult task, they reported feeling more self-confidence. Another study in the European Journal of Social Psychology found that when people wrote about a time they felt socially excluded, then repeated a swear word for two minutes, their hurt feelings and social distress were significantly lower than for people who used a neutral word.
Not only will you be able to work harder, but you can also learn better tools to regulate your emotions as well. Swearing allows us to vent and cope with any negative feelings that we're experiencing. By getting it off your chest, you'll be able to perform better in all areas, so maybe it's time to stop biting our tongues when those particular words creep up in our minds.
Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
