No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Swearing as a response to pain
Abstract
Although a common pain response, whether swearing alters individuals' experience of pain has not been investigated. This study investigated whether swearing affects cold-pressor pain tolerance (the ability to withstand immersing the hand in icy water), pain perception and heart rate. In a repeated measures design, pain outcomes were assessed in participants asked to repeat a swear word versus a neutral word. In addition, sex differences and the roles of pain catastrophising, fear of pain and trait anxiety were explored. Swearing increased pain tolerance, increased heart rate and decreased perceived pain compared with not swearing. However, swearing did not increase pain tolerance in males with a tendency to catastrophise. The observed pain-lessening (hypoalgesic) effect may occur because swearing induces a fight-or-flight response and nullifies the link between fear of pain and pain perception.
... Swearing produces emotional arousal. A growing body of research shows that swearing, or sometimes just being exposed to swear words, brings about arousal, demonstrated by changes in physiological and cognitive activity (e.g., Harris, 2004;Eilola et al., 2007;Stephens et al., 2009;Caldwell-Harris et al., 2011). Such studies are experimental in nature and provide empirical evidence linking swearing with specific arousal-related biopsychological reactions. ...
... Processing in the amygdala/limbic system is automatic and impulsive in nature, is difficult to inhibit, and can remain intact following damage to other areas of the brain (Finkelstein, 2018). In effect, then, swear words might be seen to trigger an evolutionary-based 'fight or flight' response in the individual (Stephens et al., 2009), which would partly explain why, in laboratory settings, swear words increase attention and recall, generate heightened autonomic or physiological responses, and produce both pain-relief and heightened stamina/strength (see Sections 2.3-2.5). ...
... In general, work within this paradigm treats swear words as a category of emotional language and again, there is sometimes a bilingual/multilingual dimension to the analyses. Heightened autonomic activity is generally explained by and taken as evidence of increased emotional arousal (Stephens et al., 2009;Pavlenko, 2012). Autonomic measures are established at 'baseline' (prior to any exposure to stimuli) and again following each of the (taboo/non-taboo) stimuli conditions. ...
Swearing produces effects that are not observed with other forms of language use. Thus, swearing is powerful. It generates a range of distinctive outcomes: physiological, cognitive, emotional, pain-relieving, interactional and rhetorical. However, we know that the power of swearing is not intrinsic to the words themselves. Hence, our starting question is: How does swearing get its power? In this Overview Paper, our aim is threefold. (1) We present an interdisciplinary analysis of the power of swearing (‘what we know’), drawing on insights from cognitive studies, pragmatics, communication, neuropsychology, and biophysiology. We identify specific effects of swearing, including, inter alia: emotional force and arousal; increased attention and memory; heightened autonomic activity, such as heart rate and skin conductance; hypoalgesia (pain relief); increased strength and stamina; and a range of distinctive interpersonal, relational and rhetorical outcomes. (2) We explore existing (possible) explanations for the power of swearing, including, in particular, the hypothesis that aversive classical conditioning takes place via childhood punishments for swearing. (3) We identify and explore a series of questions and issues that remain unanswered by current research/theorising (‘what we don’t know’), including the lack of direct empirical evidence for aversive classical conditioning; and we offer directions for future research.
... Kim & Choi et al. 4 perceived pain. The observed hypoalgesic effect may occur because swearing induces a fightor-flight response and nullifies the link between fear of pain and pain perception [8]. Because severe swearing among teenagers has become a social problem in South Korea, in the present study, we examined the physiological impact of swearing especially on adolescents who use swearing frequently. ...
... In the same condition, the HFS group showed a significantly higher HF norm than the LFS group, reflecting higher activity of the parasympathetic system associated with vegetative and restorative functions. Normally, the expected response to swearing is fight-orflight response, with increased sympathetic tone [8]. However, students who use swearing more frequently lacked this response and this could be explained in that they are desensitized to emotional stimuli. ...
... Stephens and Atkins demonstrated a pain-lessening effect of swearing [8]. An additional variable, the influence of daily swearing frequency on the pain-lessening effect of swearing was assessed. ...
... Swearing, defined as the use of taboo language conveying connotative information (Jay and Janschewitz, 2008), is a near-universal feature of language (van Lancker and Cummings, 1999). Research has shown that repeating a swear word can be an effective way of increasing tolerance for the physical pain of an ice water challenge (Stephens et al., 2009;Stephens and Umland, 2011;Robertson et al., 2017) and the social pain associated with ostracism (Philipp and Lombardo, 2017). ...
... In explaining how swearing brings about these pain reducing effects, one theory posits that swearing brings about a stress-induced analgesia (Stephens and Umland, 2011;Philipp and Lombardo, 2017) via increased autonomic arousal. Consistent with this theory, several studies have shown that swearing provokes an autonomic response, assessed via increased heart rate (Stephens et al., 2009;Stephens and Umland, 2011) and increased skin conductance (LaBar and Phelps, 1998;Bowers and Pleydell-Pearce, 2011). It is the emotion-provoking aspect of swearing that is thought to underlie this increase in autonomic arousal (Stephens and Allsop, 2012). ...
... The sample size was guided by a power calculation based on previous research on the hypoalgesic effects of swearing that yielded medium to large effect sizes (dz range: 0.62-1.12; Stephens et al., 2009;Stephens and Umland, 2011;Stephens and Allsop, 2012). Based on a conservatively estimated small to medium effect size of dz = 0.30, we calculated that 90 participants would be required for a within-subjects comparison of an experimental word versus a control word, with alpha set at 0.05 and power set at 80%. ...
Previous research showing that swearing alleviates pain is extended by addressing emotion arousal and distraction as possible mechanisms. We assessed the effects of a conventional swear word (“fuck”) and two new “swear” words identified as both emotion-arousing and distracting: “fouch” and “twizpipe.” A mixed sex group of participants (N = 92) completed a repeated measures experimental design augmented by mediation analysis. The independent variable was repeating one of four different words: “fuck” vs. “fouch” vs. “twizpipe” vs. a neutral word. The dependent variables were emotion rating, humor rating, distraction rating, cold pressor pain threshold, cold pressor pain tolerance, pain perception score, and change from resting heart rate. Mediation analyses were conducted for emotion, humor, and distraction ratings. For conventional swearing (“fuck”), confirmatory analyses found a 32% increase in pain threshold and a 33% increase in pain tolerance, accompanied by increased ratings for emotion, humor, and distraction, relative to the neutral word condition. The new “swear” words, “fouch” and “twizpipe,” were rated as more emotional and humorous than the neutral word but did not affect pain threshold or tolerance. Changes in heart rate and pain perception were absent. Our data replicate previous findings that repeating a swear word at a steady pace and volume benefits pain tolerance, extending this finding to pain threshold. Mediation analyses did not identify a pathway via which such effects manifest. Distraction appears to be of little importance but emotion arousal is worthy of future study.
... Research has shown that the act of repeating a swearword can elicit an increase in pain tolerance when compared with repeating a non-swear word [1][2][3]. The hypoalgesic effect has been explained as being mediated by the sympathetic nervous system triggered by swearing [3]. ...
... Four words were used for the current study. For the swear word in the British condition the word 'fuck' was chosen in order to best replicate previous studies [1,2] investigating swearing as a pain response. The neutral word in the British condition was 'cup'. ...
... The current research replicated previous studies finding that swearing during exposure to a cold-pressor pain stimulus increases pain tolerance [1,2]. In addition, the present work explored whether differences in the effectiveness of swearing as a method of pain control would be governed by social and cultural factors, namely that of a "scripting effect". ...
Background: This pre-registered study extends previous findings that swearing alleviates pain tolerance by assessing the effects of a conventional swear word (“fuck”) and two new “swear” words, “fouch” and “twizpipe”.Method: A mixed sex group of participants (N = 92) completed a repeated measures experimental design augmented by mediation analysis. The independent variable was Word with the levels, “fuck” v. “fouch” v. “twizpipe” v. a neutral word. The dependent variables were emotion rating, humour rating, distraction rating, cold pressor pain threshold, cold pressor pain tolerance, pain perception score and change from resting heart rate. Possible mediation effects were assessed for emotion, humour and distraction ratings. Results: For conventional swearing (“fuck”), confirmatory analyses found a 32% increase in pain threshold and a 33% increase in pain tolerance, accompanied by increased ratings for emotion, humour and distraction, relative to the neutral word condition. The new “swear” words, “fouch” and “twizpipe” were rated higher than the neutral word for emotion and humour although these words did not affect pain threshold or tolerance. Changes in heart rate, pain perception and were absent, as were mediation effects.Conclusions: Our data replicate previous findings that repeating a swear word at a steady pace and volume benefits pain tolerance, extending this finding to pain threshold. Our data cannot explain how such effects are manifest, although distraction appears to be of little importance, and emotion is worthy of future study. The new “swear” words did not alleviate pain even though participants rated them as emotion evoking and humorous.
... One potential answer lies in the common observation that people who are in pain often express their discontent [1]. Indeed, several experiments have now shown that verbalizing discontent by using swear words has a hypoalgesic effect [2,3]. A possible reason for this effect is that swearing provokes an emotional response in the speaker, evoking a fight/flight response that increases pain tolerance and decreases pain. ...
... Previous experimental research has found that swearing can increase pain tolerance in the context of the cold pressor procedure involving exposure to icy water [2,3]. These previous studies explicitly instructed individuals to speak in a normal tone and pace, precluding the possibility that the hypoalgesic effect of verbalizing swear words is caused by increased effort of the vocal cords (e.g. ...
... In study 1 we ensured to replicate the experimental procedure of Stephens and colleagues [2,3] utilizing the cold pressor paradigm with participants instructed to submerge their hand for as long as possible in ice water. The only difference was that we did not instruct participants to display their discontent using swear words but instead to display their discontent with a taboo gesticulation. ...
Background and aims
Prior research indicates that swearing increases pain tolerance and decreases pain perception in a cold pressor task. In two experiments, we extend this research by testing whether taboo hand gesticulations have a similar effect.
Methods
Study 1 focused on males and females who, across two trials, submerged an extended middle finger (taboo) and an extended index finger (control) in ice water until discomfort necessitated removal. Study 2 focused exclusively on pain perception in males who, across three trials, submerged their hand, flat, with extended middle finger and with extended index finger, for 45 s each.
Results
In study 1 taboo gesticulation did not increase pain tolerance or reduce pain perception compared with the index finger control condition, as a main effect or as part of an interaction with condition order. While there was a gesture×gender interaction for pain tolerance, this was driven by an increased pain tolerance for the index finger gesture for women but not men. The results of study 2 again showed that taboo gesticulation did not lower pain perception, although it did increase positive affect compared with both non-taboo gesture conditions.
Conclusions
Taken together these results provide only limited evidence that taboo gesticulation alters the experience of pain. These largely null findings further our understanding of swearing as a response to pain, suggesting that the activation of taboo schemas is not sufficient for hypoalgesia to occur.
... Examples in 2021 include the news in The Observer that swearing means you are more intelligent and helps you cope with pain (LaMotte, 2021), and that people are swearing more frequently, according to the BBC (Coughlan, 2021), but are increasingly choosing different words to do so, according to The Guardian (Davies, 2021). The findings reported in the news articles detail prominent work by K. Jay and Jay (2015), Stephens, Atkins, andKingston (2009), Love (2017) and the British Film Classification Board. The prominence of findings from swearing research in the news media suggests that the public are interested in swearing. ...
... The prominence of findings from swearing research in the news media suggests that the public are interested in swearing. The work of Stephens et al. (2009) even led to Richard Stephens winning an Ig Nobel prize, an alternative to the Nobel praise for work that makes people "laugh first and think later". It would be easy to think, therefore, that while swearing clearly makes for attention-grabbing headlines, the motivations for doing academic research on swearing are not so clear. ...
This thesis is about linguistic variation in swearing and its consequences for how speakers are socially evaluated. Abundant research has established that, beyond its perception as rude or impolite, swearing is hugely socially meaningful in a variety of ways (Stapleton, 2010; Beers Fägersten, 2012). Swearing has been shown to index solidarity (Daly et al., 2004), intimacy (Stapleton, 2003), differing forms of masculinity (De Klerk, 1997) and femininity (S. E. Hughes, 1992), honesty (Feldman et al., 2017), believability (Rassin & Heijden, 2005) and lack of intelligence (DeFrank & Kahlbaugh, 2019), among other traits. The activation of these social meanings also depends on language-external factors such as speaker gender (Howell & Giuliano, 2011), ethnicity (Jacobi, 2014) and social status (T. Jay & Janschewitz, 2008). What has not been established is whether this also depends on language-internal factors such as pronunciation, word formation or sentence structure. This thesis investigates the effect of variation from three different domains of language - phonetics, morphology and semantics/pragmatics - on social evaluation of a speaker. To do so, the thesis takes an experimental approach using the variationist sociolinguistic framework. For variation in each domain, two experiments were used to test for different levels of awareness, following Squires’s (2016) approach for grammatical variation (see also Schmidt, 1990). One experiment tested whether people perceived the variation, while a second tested whether people noticed the variation in the process of social evaluation; the concepts of perceiving and noticing roughly map to the Labovian concepts of the sociolinguistic indicator and marker respectively (Labov, 1972). At the level of phonetics, variation in the realisation of variable (ING) in swearwords (e.g., fucking vs fuckin) was first tested using a variant categorization task, revealing that listeners have an implicit bias towards the velar [IN] variant when hearing swearwords, compared to neutral words and non-words. An auditory matched-guise task then revealed that this same bias affects how listeners extract social information from (ING) tokens attached to swearwords in relation to social meanings typically associated with the variable (Schleef et al., 2017). This result suggests that, rather than pronunciation affecting how swearwords are socially evaluated, swearwords can affect how other phonetic sources of social meaning are evaluated.
... Nonetheless, if swear words are used in a literal sense, for example There is shit on my shoe or They were fucking, the expression in question is still likely to be seen as taboo and/or offensive if used in an inappropriate context (illustrated in Beers Fägersten 2012: 90 and Drummond 2020: 3). Furthermore, the use of swear words in experimental conditions has been shown to produce hypoalgesic and autonomic effects (Stephens et al. 2009;Stephens & Robertson 2020) and be experienced as psychologically arousing (Bowers & Pleydell-Pearce 2011;Janschewitz 2008), calling into doubt that such physiological functions are somehow suspended when swear words are used literally. Many researchers thus reject this second criterion based on evidence that swear words used in their literal sense are, in fact, experienced in the same way as non-literal swearing, that is, as arousing, inappropriate, offensive, and not devoid of emotion (Beers Fägersten & Stapleton 2017;Drummond 2020;Dynel 2012;Love 2021;McEnery 2006;Singleton 2009). ...
... In fact, as Jay (2018a: 121) has noted, "where humans go, swearing will follow". Thus, it must be assumed that swearing fulfils particular psychological and/or interactional functions that are not easily achieved by other linguistic means (Stapleton 2010 (Stephens et al. 2018); produces heightened autonomic activity, such as heart rate and skin conductance (Harris 2004;Harris et al. 2003;Harris et al. 2006;Stephens et al. 2009); and shows activation of different parts of the brain from those activated in other language use (Finkelstein 2018;Vingerhoets et al. 2013). ...
Interpersonal Pragmatics of Swearing: definitions, criteria, methods of investigation, positive and negative interpersonal functions
... Since Montagu's theory highlights different functions of swearing, most studies have divided their investigations in intra-and inter-personal functions. Stephens et al., 2009) obtained striking experimental results regarding the intra-individual, cathartic function of swearing. In an ice-cold water test, participants, who continuously repeated a swear word, could leave their hand longer in the water, and perceived less pain in comparison to participants who repeated a neutral word. ...
... Interestingly, taboo gestures can have an influence on one's mood, but not one's pain tolerance (Jacobs et al., 2019). Whereas spoken swear words increase pain tolerance, a lifted middle finger does not (Jacobs et al., 2019;Stephens et al., 2009). The authors explain the lacking analgesic effect by questioning whether taboo gestures activate different cognitive schemes than verbal swear words do. ...
Swearing, cursing, expletives – all these terms are used to describe the utterance of taboo words. Studies show that swearing makes up around 0.5% of the daily spoken content, however, the inter-individual variability is very high. One kind of pathologic swearing is coprolalia in Tourette syndrome (TS), which describes the involuntary outburst of taboo words. Coprolalia occurs in approximately 20-30% of all patients with TS. This review compares swearing in healthy people and coprolalia in people with TS and is the first one to develop a multidimensional framework to account for both phenomena from a similar perspective. Different research findings are embedded in one theoretical framework consisting of reasons, targets, functions/effects and influencing factors for swearing and coprolalia. Furthermore, the very limited research investigating obscene gestures and copropraxia, compulsive obscene gestures, is summarized. New research questions and gaps are brought up for swearing, obscene gestures and coprophenomena.
... Swearing elicits physiological responses such as elevated heart rate and increased galvanic skin response (Bowers & Pleydell-Pearce, 2011;Buchanan et al., 2006;Harris et al., 2003). Moreover, swearing aloud increases tolerance to pain (Stephens et al., 2009;Stephens & Robertson, 2020;Stephens & Umland, 2011) and boosts physical performance (Stephens et al., 2018). ...
Why do swear words sound the way they do? Swear words are often thought to have sounds that render them especially fit for purpose, facilitating the expression of emotion and attitude. To date, however, there has been no systematic cross-linguistic investigation of phonetic patterns in profanity. In an initial, pilot study we explored statistical regularities in the sounds of swear words across a range of typologically distant languages. The best candidate for a cross-linguistic phonemic pattern in profanity was the absence of approximants (sonorous sounds like l, r, w and y). In Study 1, native speakers of various languages (Arabic, Chinese, Finnish, French, German, Spanish; N = 215) judged foreign words less likely to be swear words if they contained an approximant. In Study 2 we found that sanitized versions of English swear words – like darn instead of damn – contain significantly more approximants than the original swear words. Our findings reveal that not all sounds are equally suitable for profanity, and demonstrate that sound symbolism – wherein certain sounds are intrinsically associated with certain meanings – is more pervasive than has previously been appreciated, extending beyond denoting single concepts to serving pragmatic functions.
... Continued work might also include more elaborate measures of drug involvement, for example by including quantity and frequency of use and focusing on more recent consumption. In addition, some drugs of abuse and swearing share analgesic, mood, and arousal effects (Stephens et al., 2009;Stephens & Zile, 2017). A new behavioral task in which performance increases with drug involvement might have novel, interesting applications across a number of fields. ...
Swearing is stereotypically associated with socially undesirable traits and behaviors, including limited verbal ability, disagreeable personality, and alcohol use. We sought to demonstrate that, contrary to such stereotypes, swear word fluency (i.e., ability to generate swear words) does not arise from a lack of verbal skills. We also explored whether swear word fluency might serve as an index of personality traits related to drug use. Accordingly, we conducted a preregistered study in which 266 undergraduates at a US university ( M age = 19.36; 66.9% self-identified as women and 49.6% as White) completed measures of swear word fluency, verbal fluency (i.e., overall ability to generate words), vocabulary, Big Five traits, sensation seeking, and drug use. We observed positive associations between swear word fluency and verbal fluency, vocabulary, Openness, and Extraversion, and a negative association with Agreeableness. Moreover, swear word fluency accounted for unique variance in self-reported drug use over and above that accounted for by personality and general verbal ability. Swear word fluency might serve as one of few tasks where higher scores predict more drug involvement, justifying further work linking this measure with other aspects of personality and drug use.
... Škodlivým správaním zamestnancov môže byť aj používanie nadávok. Aj keď nadávky môžu byť spôsobom ako uvoľniť napätie alebo znížiť vnímanie bolesti (Stephens, Atkins, Kingston, 2009), v niektorých situáciách, napríklad pri komunikácii s klientom, sú tabu. Napriek tomu, že s používaním ofenzívneho jazyka, preklínaním a verbálnymi útokmi na pracovisku sa môžeme stretnúť každodenne, upútali iba malú pozornosť výskumníkov. ...
... Research has furthermore established a range of physical, mental, and social benefits of swearing (see Vingerhoets et al. 2013 for a full review). Not only can swearing be pain-relieving (Stephens, Atkins and Kingston 2009;Stephens and Umland 2011), stress-reducing (Rassin and Muris 2005;Jay et al. 2006), and cathartic (Wajnryb 2005;Pinker 2007;Dynel 2012), it can also convey credibility (Rassin and Van der Heijden 2005), signal levity and intensify humor (Beers Fägersten 2012;Jay 1999;Norrick 2012), index intimacy and solidarity (Daly et al. 2004;Stapleton 2003Stapleton , 2010, and even facilitate professional interaction (Baruch and Jenkins 2007). The recent publication of Adams' (2016) In Praise of Profanity and Byrne's (2017), Swearing Is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language confirms an ever more overt appreciation of the benefits of swearing. ...
Swearing has traditionally been associated with spoken language; however, swear words are appearing more often in print and, notably, explicitly featured in commercial products. In this paper, we consider this development an example of the commodification of swear words, or ‘swear words for sale’. Our analyses of English-language swear word products show that the taboo nature of swear words is exploited and capitalized upon for commercial gain. We argue that swear word commodities trade on sociolinguistically incongruous aspects of swear word usage, increasing salability of the swear word products by targeting specific demographics. Specifically, we analyze (1) women’s apparel and accessories, (2) domestic items and home décor, and (3) children’s products for adults or articles targeting parents of young children. The study concludes with a discussion of whether the popularization of swearing via such commodification may ultimately result in a loss of distinctiveness and devaluation.
... 11 See Baruch and Jenkins (2007); Bayard and Krishnayya (2001); Beers Fägersten (2007); Benwell (2001); Cheshire (1982); Hughes (1992); Romaine (1999). 12 Research has shown that swearing is associated with enhanced pain tolerance (Stephens et al. 2009, Stone 2010Stephens and Umland 2011;Dong 2010). ...
Swearing is a linguistic practice common to most societies and cultures, even though there is great variation in what constitutes swearing in different cultures and how it is expressed, depending on the hierarchy of values that are prevalent in a given society. Swearing is therefore an intrinsic part of a language (Dewaele 2010; Ljung 2011) and since any “structure of a language is a powerful tool for understanding a culture” (Sagarin 1968: 18), whatever one’s own personal attitudes are towards this phenomenon, the socio-cultural significance of swearing must be acknowledged. Accordingly, in recent decades, the practice of swearing has been the subject of increasing amounts of scholarly investigation. Swearing is also becoming less marked as a sociolinguistic activity and it is no longer mostly confined to private interpersonal settings, but is progressively accepted in new domains including literature, television, films, social media, and so on (Henry 2006; Dynel 2012). The present paper investigates the different translation strategies chosen to render swearwords from the original Italian into the English subtitles in the film Gomorra (Garrone 2008) and the Italian TV series bearing the same title (Sky Italia 2014), both based on the eponymous book by Roberto Saviano. The study, conducted on a comparative, descriptive, non-judgemental basis, has been carried out by analysing the Italian audio scripts of the film and the TV series and the English subtitles contained in the Italian DVDs. The overall conclusion is that subtitles allow swearwords’ denotative and domesticated messages to get across; however, because no translations were available in English for the Neapolitan dialect items, many of the sociocultural-specific references embedded in the source text tend to remain opaque and swearwords’ sociopragmatic nuances are often flattened or even disappear.
... In an unorganized situation, the swearing tends to evoke an unhappy situation while in an organized situation, a happy situation is identified. Swearing is generally used to identify the group (Tysdahl, 2008), intimacy and connection (Winters & Duck, 2001), pain (Stephens et al. 2009) (Stephens & Umland, 2011), impoliteness or politeness (Dynel, 2012), contextual appropriateness (Jay & Janschewitz, 2008), an impression (Cavazza & Guidetti, 2014), and humor (Beers Fägersten, 2017). ...
Character equivalence and offensive word rank in subtitling context are understudied on the previous studies on euphemisation strategies. The exclusion of these two concerns leaves the prior constructed euphemisation strategies unable to explain how shifts on narrative identity might occur and how taboo words are functionally negotiated. In addressing this issue, the study investigates the relationship between offensive word levels with character equivalence and narrative identity, types of euphemisation strategies, and the strategies' implementation. The data were collected from the English and Indonesian versions of four films containing taboo words, which were analyzed by applying the theories of offensiveness rank by Ofcom, constructed in English as a foreign language context, and character equivalence by Petrucci. The findings indicate that offensive word translation suffers a rank shift on offensive word ranks Departing from these findings. We propose euphemisation strategies with offensive word rank and character equivalence as the primary narrative basis with mediality and subtitling standard as the primary mechanical basis. Those strategies are downgrading, degrading, sidegrading, outgrading, ingrading, and retrograding. The reasons of euphemisation strategy implementation are bipolarly divided into aesthetics and mechanics in relation to distances and perspectives of the applied offensive words.
Journal on English as a Foreign Language http://e-journal.iain-palangkaraya.ac.id/index.php/jefl
... Attentional strategies may be applied to the attention phase, with individuals directing their attention towards or away from emotional stimuli (e.g., Bebko, Franconeri, Ochsner, & Chiao, 2011;Wadlinger & Isaacowitz, 2011). Individuals may later employ cognitive restructuring strategies during the appraisal phase to change their thoughts or reinterpret perceptions of the emotional environment (e.g., Blechert, Sheppes, Di Tella, Williams, & Gross, 2012;Goldin et al., 2008;Urry, 2010 Stephens, Atkins, & Kingston, 2009), and expressive suppression (e.g., Goldin et al., 2008; James J. Gross, 1998). ...
This chapter provides working definitions of emotion and related concepts utilized in the study of emotions and sport performance. It overviews multiple important roles that emotions serve in the resultant behaviors that ultimately influence sport performance. The chapter reviews influential conceptual frameworks that have advanced understanding of emotions as related to sport performance. It highlights empirical work that has contributed deductively to theory testing and inductively to the advancement of knowledge. The integrative model of stress, attention, and human performance incorporates, among others, hypotheses from the attention control theory. The chapter also highlights how emotions alter the fundamental mechanisms underpinning behavioral changes that impact sport performance. It offers pragmatic consideration of how sport psychology research can continue to inform the scientific practice of sport psychology, particularly as related to the development of innovative approaches for emotion regulation.
... The survey of objects for catharsis through destruction shows a strong tension between the thousand-year tradition of object destruction and the scientific controversy on whether this behavior is beneficial. In recent years researchers have attempted to settle the contradiction by showing that venting does not reduce feelings of anger, but has other benefits, like improving people's mood [12], sense of fairness [47] and relieving physical pain [66]. Others suggested that physical venting combined with writing or talking about a negative emotion can improve wellbeing [56] [28]. ...
The intersection between social, technical and economic factors biases new product development to focus on utilitarian value. However, objects that serve alternative goals, behaviors and emotions have accompanied humankind for millennia. This paper speculates about robotic objects for one non-utilitarian behavior and its implications: destruction. Robots and objects for destruction have a shared history of embodiment, and heavily rely on their embodiment for interaction. Yet the topic of destruction is not very common in the field of human-robot interaction (HRI). Thus, we (1) present a survey of ethnographic investigations that show modes of human-object interaction related to destruction, and (2) develop speculative concepts of interaction that demonstrate these ideas in HRI. By exemplifying a broad range of speculative uses of destruction in HRI and grounding it in literature, we hope this theoretical and conceptual paper will bring a fresh perspective on alternative interactions with robots.
... Cursing represents a powerful and ubiquitous component of natural language. In American English, cursing serves beneficial functions such as pain alleviation, increased grip strength, and social bonding among peers (Bergen, 2016;Stephens, Atkins, & Kingston, 2009;Stephens, Spierer, & Katehis, 2018). These benefits are counterbalanced by a variety of negative social and/or legal consequences. ...
Many neurological disorders are associated with excessive and/or uncontrolled cursing. The right prefrontal cortex has long been implicated in a diverse range of cognitive processes that underlie the propensity for cursing, including non-propositional language representation, emotion regulation, theory of mind, and affective arousal. Neurogenic cursing often poses significant negative social consequences, and there is no known behavioral intervention for this communicative disorder. We examined whether right vs. left lateralized prefrontal neurostimultion via tDCS could modulate taboo word production in neurotypical adults. We employed a pre/post design with a bilateral frontal electrode montage. Half the participants received left anodal and right cathodal stimulation; the remainder received the opposite polarity stimulation at the same anatomical loci. We employed physiological (pupillometry) and behavioral (reaction time) dependent measures as participants read aloud taboo and non-taboo words. Pupillary responses demonstrated a crossover reaction, suggestive of modulation of phasic arousal during cursing. Participants in the right anodal condition showed elevated pupil responses for taboo words post stimulation. In contrast, participants in the right cathodal condition showed relative dampening of pupil responses for taboo words post stimulation. We observed no effects of stimulation on response times. We interpret these findings as supporting modulation of right hemisphere affective arousal that disproportionately impacts taboo word processing. We discuss alternate accounts of the data and future applications to neurological disorders.
... Evidence indicates several response modulation strategies are capable of regulating emotional states. Popular strategies include physical exercise, listening to music, expressing emotions, suppression of emotional expressions, volitional consumption of mood altering drugs, and relaxation techniques (Augustine & Hemenover, 2009;Bishop et al., 2007;Buckman, Yusko, Farris, White, & Pandina, 2011;Goldin et al., 2008;Lee, Josephs, Dolan, & Critchley, 2006;Martens & Martin, 2010;Stephens, Atkins, & Kingston, 2009;Webb et al., 2012). Although expressive suppression and drug use effectively regulate emotional experience, over-reliance on these strategies also elicits long-term affective, mental, and physical health disruptions that are likely comorbid to long-term motor performance disruptions. ...
Adaptive regulation of emotions is imperative for successful sport performance. However, the lion’s share of mainstream emotion regulation (ER) literature is founded on perspectives prioritising mental health, not performance. Consequently, ER strategies are predominantly classified as adaptive or maladaptive based on effectiveness in achieving targeted mental health outcomes. These conventional mental health classifications can catalyse misapplication of ER strategies within sport and other motor performance contexts when (1) ER motives are instrumentally directed towards performance enhancement and (2) Minimal consideration is given to the consequences of ER on the coordination and execution of motor actions. Herein, we review the current state of relevant ER research within and outside of sport contexts. We also present a novel conceptual framework, the Temporal Influence Model of Emotion Regulation (TIMER). TIMER proposes that ER strategies exert distinct, temporally dependent demands upon perceptual-cognitive and motoric resources. These unique regulatory profiles influence subsequent motor performance outcomes. Critically, the degree to which regulatory strategies are appropriate or ideal varies given environmental constraints along with performers’ affective and performance goals. The model includes testable hypotheses to guide theoretical and applied research in the domain of ER within sport and other motor performance contexts.
... Swearing is the utterance of taboo words with the goal of communicating the sender's emotional state (Jay, 1992). While swearing can have some positive intraindividual effects, such as pain tolerance (Stephens, Atkins, & Kingston, 2009), inhibition of aggression, and stress relief (Jay, King, & Duncan, 2006), as well as positive inter-individual effects (e.g., stopping unwanted behaviors, signaling function, group binding, identity making, Vingerhoets, Bylsma, & de Vlam, 2013), it can have harmful impacts upon individuals and society. As society accepts the idea that words can hurt people (Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993), swearing can negatively affect an individual's social status (Stapleton, 2010). ...
Through the Theory of Normative Social Behavior, this article tests whether outcome expectations (i.e., benefits-to-self and anticipatory socialization) moderate the relationship between descriptive norms and swearing behavior and intentions. A study was conducted among Korean high school students (N = 483), and the results provide considerable support for the moderating role outcome expectations. When adolescents believed that there are high personal benefits, they were more likely to be influenced by the behaviors practiced by their peers. Similarly, beliefs that swearing may enhance socialization are likely to influence adolescents to adhere to their normative perceptions.
... Although findings that confirm or refute this theory have been inconclusive, the idea of catharsis persists in people's beliefs in both historical and modern day expressions. Recent studies have also shown that venting can improve perceptions of fairness [8] and can help relieve physical pain [12]. Building on previous research and through an iterative design process, we designed four prototypes for catharsis that enable physical and vocal expression of negative affect (see Fig. 1). ...
Emotions that are perceived as "negative" are inherent in the human experience. Yet not much work in the field of HCI has looked into the role of these emotions in interaction with technology. As technology is becoming more social, personal and emotional by mediating our relationships and generating new social entities (such as conversational agents and robots), it is valuable to consider how it can support people's negative emotions and behaviors. Research in Psychology shows that interacting with negative emotions correctly can benefit well-being, yet the boundary between helpful and harmful is delicate. This workshop paper looks at the opportunities of designing for negative affect, and the challenge of "causing no harm" that arises in an attempt to do so.
... For the scope of this study, we aim to cover all the functions identified by past research that can be identified from text with restricted content and context such as tweets. Thus, we dropped the cathartic function from Pinker (2007), which is an instantaneous reaction more specific to speech to relieve the effect of physical pain (Stephens et al., 2009). This would thus be very rarely -if ever -expressed through social media and would be very hard to annotate with textual content alone while lacking the broader context of its utterance. ...
... A small study examining laughter, found that participants who watched a humorous video had reduced serum cortisol levels compared to controls (Berk et al., 1989). Two studies examining the impact of swearing on pain, found that participants who were asked to swear repeatedly during submersion of their hand in icy water, had an increased heart rate and were able to keep their hand submerged for longersuggesting the acute stress response was enhanced ( Stephens et al., 2009, Stephens andUmland, 2011). ...
This chapter, Stress Pain and Recovery: neuro-immune-endocrine interactions and clinical practice, was published in 2017 book titled Psychologically-informed Physiotherapy: embedding psychosocial perspectives within clinical management
... Although findings that confirm or refute this theory have been inconclusive, the idea of catharsis persists in people's beliefs in both historical and modern day expressions. Recent studies have also shown that venting can improve perceptions of fairness [8] and can help relieve physical pain [12]. Building on previous research and through an iterative design process, we designed four prototypes for catharsis that enable physical and vocal expression of negative affect (see Fig. 1). ...
Emotions that are perceived as “negative” are inherent to the human experience. Yet not much work in the field of HCI has looked into the role of these emotions in interaction with technology. As technology is becoming more social, personal and emotional by mediating our relationships and generating new social entities (such as conversational agents and robots), it is valuable to consider how it can support people’s negative emotions and behaviors. Research in Psychology shows that interacting with negative emotions correctly can benefit well-being, yet the boundary between helpful and harmful is delicate. This workshop paper looks at the opportunities of designing for negative affect, and the challenge of “causing no harm” that arises in an attempt to do so.
... A survey of studies on humans reveal parallels to songbird studies. For example, in human studies vocal behaviors [i.e., undirected swearing, affiliative social laughter, and vocal repetition or rhythmic respiration (e.g., during meditation)] induce analgesia and/or are associated with a feeling of well-being (Stephens et al., 2009;Dunbar et al., 2012;Ahmed et al., 2014), similar to what has been observed for vocal behaviors produced in flocks in songbirds. Furthermore, in humans both reward and pain neural networks are implicated in social reward and the pain of social rejection (Macdonald and Leary, 2005;Lieberman and Eisenberger, 2009;Eisenberger, 2012), similar to evidence we review here in songbirds. ...
The formation of social groups provides safety and opportunities for individuals to develop and practice important social skills. However, joining a social group does not result in any form of obvious, immediate reinforcement (e.g., it does not result in immediate copulation or a food reward), and individuals often remain in social groups despite agonistic responses from conspecifics. Much is known about neural and endocrine mechanisms underlying the motivation to perform mate- or offspring-directed behaviors. In contrast, relatively little is known about mechanisms underlying affiliative behaviors outside of these primary reproductive contexts. Studies on flocking behavior in songbirds are beginning to fill this knowledge gap. Here we review behavioral evidence that supports the hypothesis that non-sexual affiliative, flocking behaviors are both (1) rewarded by positive social interactions with conspecifics, and (2) reinforced because affiliative contact reduces a negative affective state caused by social isolation. We provide evidence from studies in European starlings, Sturnus vulgaris, that mu opioid receptors in the medial preoptic nucleus (mPOA) play a central role in both reward and the reduction of a negative affective state induced by social interactions in flocks, and discuss potential roles for nonapeptide/opioid interactions and steroid hormones. Finally, we develop the case that non-sexual affiliative social behaviors may be modified by two complementary output pathways from mPOA, with a projection from mPOA to the periaqueductal gray integrating information during social interactions that reduces negative affect and a projection from mPOA to the ventral tegmental area integrating information leading to social approach and reward.
... A group of psychologists at Keele University investigated the question of whether swearing alters individual experience of pain (Stephens et al. 2009). Testing 67 students, the researchers compared pain tolerance and the perception of pain while immersing a hand in cold water (5 0 C, 41 0 F). ...
This chapter explores and summarizes the current knowledge about the neurophysiological substrata of the utterance of expletives—its brain regions, pathways, and neurotransmitters, and its interaction with hormones. The chapter presents clinical data that have been gathered directly from patients of aphasia, Tourette syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, and brain injuries—all are disorders often accompanied with expletives. It also discusses the possible relations between swearing and aggression, swearing and pain, and swearing and social inhibition in the population at large. Finally, the chapter examines the clinical data and the data gathered from the population at large within one frame, and proposes two hypotheses that can serve as possible directions for future research about the biological substrata of swearing. No previous knowledge of the brain is assumed. © editorial matter and organization Keith Allan 2019 and the chapters their several authors 2019.
... anger, shock, frustration (Ljung, 2011)), positive emotions (e.g. joy, joke (Jay, 2000)), or as a response to pain (Stephens, Atkins, & Kingston, 2009). ...
English movies have become a medium for the global spread of English swear words. However, not all people from non-English speaking countries know and understand the literal meanings of these words. This qualitative research aims to figure out the semantic referents of swear words in the film Bad Boys II. Content analysis was employed as its method. The results of this study show that nine semantic referents of swear words were used in the movie, namely sexual references, profane or blasphemous, scatological and disgusting objects, animal names, ethnic-racial-gender slurs, psychological-physical-social deviations, ancestral allusions, substandard vulgar terms, and offensive slang. Thus, Bad Boys II has a vast variety of swear words.
... Cathartic swear word has the ability to reduce pain. One of the studies demonstrated to ask the informants to put their hands in the ice of water while they had to choose and repeat between the chosen swear or neutral word [10]. The result shows that the participants who repeated swear word could endure the painful stimulus longer than uttering the neutral word. ...
... By contrast, Type D personality was positively associated with swear word use. As an explanation for this finding, it is known that acutely elevated emotional arousal increases swearing fluency (Stephens & Zile, 2017) and enhances coping with physical pain (Stephens, Atkins, & Kingston, 2009). By extension, Type D personality is associated with chronically high emotional arousal and it is feasible that swearing is used as a coping mechanism among high Type D individuals. ...
Objectives
Type D personality is associated with psychological and physical ill‐health. However, there has been limited investigation of the role of Type D personality in interventions designed to enhance well‐being. This study investigated associations between Type D personality and the efficacy of positive emotional writing for reducing stress, anxiety, and physical symptoms.
Design
A between‐subjects longitudinal design was employed.
Method
Participants (N = 71, Mage = 28.2, SDage = 12.4) completed self‐report measures of Type D personality, physical symptoms, perceived stress, and trait anxiety, before completing either (1) positive emotional writing or (2) a non‐emotive control writing task, for 20 min per day over three consecutive days. State anxiety was measured immediately before and after each writing session, and self‐report questionnaires were again administered 4 weeks post‐writing.
Results
Participants in the positive emotional writing condition showed significantly greater reductions in (1) state anxiety and (2) both trait anxiety and perceived stress over the 4‐week follow‐up period, compared to the control group. While these effects were not moderated by Type D personality, a decrease in trait anxiety was particularly evident in participants who reported both high levels of social inhibition and low negative affectivity. Linguistic analysis of the writing diaries showed that Type D personality was positively associated with swear word use, but not any other linguistic categories.
Conclusion
These findings support the efficacy of positive emotional writing for alleviating stress and anxiety, but not perceived physical symptoms. Swearing may be a coping strategy employed by high Type D individuals.
Statement of contribution
What is already known on this subject?
• Type D (distressed) personality is characterized by high levels of both negative affectivity and social inhibition, and has been associated with adverse physical and psychological health.
• Positive emotional writing is known to reduce subjectively reported physical symptoms and increase positive affect.
What does this study add?
• Positive emotional writing was shown to attenuate (1) state anxiety immediately post‐writing, and (2) trait anxiety and perceived stress 4 weeks post‐writing.
• The findings demonstrate that positive writing might be a useful intervention for attenuating the adverse psychological effects of Type D personality in the general population.
• Type D personality was associated with more frequent use of swear words, which may be a coping mechanism used by high Type D individuals.
The purpose of this research is to describe the types and functions of taboo words uttered by the characters, and describe the social background that affect the main character’s utterances in Deadpool 2. The data are utterances containing taboo words. The analysis focuses on the types and functions of taboo words by applying Azzaro’s (2005) theory. The finding shows, 1) there are five types of taboo words in use. The most frequently used taboo is Sexual term with 70 occurrences (52.2%), followed by physical term with 23 occurrences (17.2%), religious term with 21 occurrences (15.7%), scatological term with 17 occurrences (12.7%), and mental term with 3 occurrences (2.2%). 2) There are two functions of taboo words: swearing with 82 occurrences (64%), and insult with 46 occurrences (36%). 3) There are two social variables that affect the main character’s use of taboo words: occupational hierarchy and social status.
Little data exists on vocalization during birth. What research does exist supports the notion that vocalizing can be a useful tool to birthing people. Similar to many childbirth courses, theatre-based voice training includes a strong focus on physical release and ease to function as a fruitful foundation for easy vocalization. Additionally, this type of training places specific focus on the use of sound and cultivates the ability to use the voice freely and without inhibition. This study hypothesized that using theatre-based voice techniques during childbirth would reduce the perception of pain during labor and improve women’s sense of autonomy during the experience. To explore this hypothesis, two groups of pregnant people were taught theatre-based voice exercises and researchers collected data on their experiences after their births. Broadly, this study suggests that theatre and voice-based experiences have the potential to improve women’s overall satisfaction with their birth experience and presents an important, cross-disciplinary application to voice work.
Swearing has been shown to reduce the experience of pain in a cold pressor task, and the effect has been suggested to be due to state aggression. In the present experiment, we examined whether producing a taboo gesture (i.e., the American gesture of raising the middle finger) reduces the experience of pain similar to the effect that has been shown for producing a taboo word. 111 participants completed two cold pressor trials in a 2 (Language vs. Gesture) × 2 (Taboo vs. Neutral) mixed design. We found that producing a taboo act in either language or gesture increased pain tolerance on the cold pressor task and reduced the experience of perceived pain compared to producing a neutral act. We found no changes in state aggression or heart rate. These results suggest that the pain-reducing effect of swearing is shared by taboo gesture and that these effects are likely not due to changes in state aggression.
This book reviews 50 years of studies of familiar language, including formulaic expressions, lexical bundles, and collocations, providing a psycholinguistic and neurological model of familiar and novel language processing. This dual model proposes separate brain systems for familiar and novel language. Classification systems, definitions, myriad examples, and models are presented.
Swearing uses language forms that are taboo and potentially offensive. These are often used for emotional expression. Multilingual research shows that because the first language retains most emotional force (Dewaele [2004]. “The Emotional Force of Swearwords and Taboo Words in the Speech of Multilinguals.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 25 (2/3): 204–219; Pavlenko [2012]. “Affective Processing in Bilingual Speakers: Disembodied Cognition?” International Journal of Psychology 47 (6): 405–428), it is often the language of choice for swearing. Furthermore, swearing frequency and language preference are associated with different personality traits (Dewaele [2017a]. “Self-Reported Frequency of Swearing in English: Do Situational, Psychological and Socio-Biographical Variables Have Similar Effects on First and Foreign Language Users?” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 38 (4): 330–345). This study draws together these multilingualism research areas to investigate Persian immigrants’ language choice for swearing, with reference to personality traits and socio-biographical factors, and in light of the Iranian cultural context. A mixed methods approach was adopted combining questionnaire and interview data. 204 Persian–English multilinguals residing outside Iran participated. Key findings revealed nuanced gender and personality dimensions. Specifically, women with higher Social Initiative (Extraversion) used English swearwords more frequently than Persian swearwords. Men who showed lower Emotional Stability (high Neuroticism) used Persian swearwords more frequently than English swearwords. There was also a positive relation between frequency of the use of Persian/English, self-rated knowledge in Persian/English, and Cultural Empathy and Open-mindedness. Semi-structured interviews provided deeper insight into these language choices. The study highlights how language preferences for swearing are shaped by both personality and socio-biographical factors in complex and nuanced ways.
Introduction: Swearing fulfils positive functions including benefitting pain relief and physical strength. Here we present two experiments assessing a possible psychological mechanism, increased state disinhibition, for the effect of swearing on physical strength. Method: Two repeated measures experiments were carried out with sample sizes N=56, and N=118. Both included measures of physical performance assessing, respectively, grip and arm strength, and both included the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) to measure risky behaviour. Experiment 2, which was pre-registered, additionally assessed flow, emotion including humour, distraction including novelty, self-confidence and anxiety. Results: Experiments 1 and 2 found that repeating a swear word benefitted physical strength and increased risky behaviour, but risky behaviour did not mediate the strength effect. Experiment 2 found that repeating a swear word increased flow, positive emotion, humour and distraction and self-confidence. Humour mediated the effect of swearing on physical strength. Discussion: Consistent effects of swearing on physical strength indicate that this is a reliable effect. Swearing influenced several constructs related to state disinhibition including increased self-confidence. Humour appeared to mediate the effect of swearing on physical strength, consistent with a hot cognitions explanation of swearing-induced state disinhibition. However, as this mediation effect was part of an exploratory analysis, further pre-registered experimental research including validated measures of humour is required.
Chronic pain remains one of the most persistent healthcare challenges in the world. To advance pain treatment, experts have recently introduced research-driven subtypes of chronic pain based on proposed underlying mechanisms. Nociplastic pain (e.g., nonspecific chronic low back or fibromyalgia) is one such subtype which may involve a greater etiologic role for brain plasticity, painful emotions induced by life stress and trauma, and unhealthy emotion regulation. In particular, correlational and behavioral data link anger and the ways anger is regulated with the presence and severity of nociplastic pain. Functional neuroimaging studies also suggest nociplastic pain and healthy anger regulation demonstrate inverse patterns of activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and amygdala; thus, improving anger regulation could normalize activity in these regions. In this Mini-Review, we summarize these findings and propose a unified, biobehavioral model called the Anger, Brain, and Nociplastic Pain (AB-NP) Model, which can be tested in future research and may advance pain care by informing new treatments that address anger, anger regulation, and brain plasticity for nociplastic pain.
Expressives (damn) convey speaker attitude and when used in context (Tom lost the damn dog) can be flexibly applied locally to the noun (dog) or globally to the whole sentence (the situation). We used ERPs to explore brain responses to expressives in sentences. Participants read expressive, descriptive, and pseudoword adjectives followed by nouns in sentences (The damn/black/flerg dog peed on the couch). At the adjective late-positivity-component (LPC), expressives and descriptives showed no difference, suggesting reduced social threat and that readers employ a ‘wait-and-see’ strategy to interpret expressives. Nouns preceded by expressives elicited a larger frontal P200, as well as reduced N400 and LPC than nouns preceded by descriptives. We associated the frontal P200 with emotional salience, the frontal N400 with mental imagery, and the LPC with cognitive load for combinatorics. We suggest that expressive adjectives are not bound to conceptual integration and conclude that parsers wait-and-see what is being damned.
Today, most people need a communication channel to get information, get news, have fun, get to know a product/service, engage in any production/consumption activity, or socialize. While it was seen that these actions took place only under the umbrella of traditional communication tools until the end of the 1990s, it has been done in an interactive environment by gaining great momentum since the 2000s. In other words, the limit of oneway communication could be broken with the flexibility and speed of two-way communication. People sometimes produce in their groups and use some unique words and phrases that are only understood by their group members. These words and expressions can also include slang. Slang is usually the language specific to a social group.
Swearing has been shown to affect hearers' perceptions of speakers. Existing studies show mixed effects. Some identify favourable perceptions, including: greater speaker informality , intensity, humour, and credibility. Others show negative outcomes, with swearers perceived as: less competent, intelligent, and trustworthy; and as more aggressive and socially inept than non-swearers. Most existing studies are based on experimental methodologies, typically using constructed data and directly eliciting evaluations. In this paper, using Discursive Psychology principles, I adopt a perspective that is closer to 'real world' processes of perception and evaluation. Specifically, I analyse online reader responses to news reports of a celebrity host's swearing during a televised awards event. Here, the data are unelicited, discursively formulated, and produced in response to a concrete swearing example. In the analysis, I examine the meaning frameworks through which the respondents evaluate swearing; and the types of perceptions that they form about the speaker, including his motivations for swearing and his personal characteristics. I demonstrate that: (a) evaluative categories are negotiated in different ways; and (b) evaluations are inextricably linked to existing representations of the speaker, as well as contextualised judgements and expectations. The study highlights the role of socio-pragmatic concerns in swearing and speaker evaluation.
Malevolent character traits (i.e., the Dark Triad: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) are associated to emotional frigidity, antagonism, immoral strategic thinking, betrayal, exploitation, and sexual promiscuity. Despite the fact that character is a complex adaptive system, almost every study has solely investigated the linear association between malevolent character and attitudes towards both swearing and sociosexual orientation (i.e., behavior, attitude, and desire regarding promiscuous sexual behavior). In contrast, the aim in this set of studies was to evaluate these associations in relation to specific profiles of malevolent character (i.e., the Dark Cube). In two studies participants responded to the Dark Triad Dirty Dozen, the Taboo Words’ Offensiveness and Usage Inventories (i.e., attitudes towards 30 swear words’ level of offensiveness and usage) (Study 1: N1 = 1,000) and the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory Revised (Study 2: N2 = 309). Participants were clustered according to all eight possible combinations based on their dark trait scores (M/m = high/low Machiavellianism; N/n = high/low narcissism; P/p = high/low psychopathy). The results of this nonlinear approach suggested that the frequent usage, not level of offensiveness, of swear words was associated to Machiavellianism and narcissism. In other words, individuals with high levels in these traits might swear and are verbally offensive often, because they do not see swearing as offensive (cf. with the attitude- behavior-cognition-hypothesis of taboo words; Rosenberg, Sikström & Garcia, 2017). Moreover, promiscuous sociosexual attitude and desire were related to each dark trait only when the other two were low. Additionally, promiscuous sociosexual behavior was not associated to these malevolent character traits. That is, individuals high in the dark traits are willing to and have the desire to engage in sexual relations without closeness, commitment, and other indicators of emotional bonding. However, they do not report high levels of previous sexual experience, relationships, and infidelity. Hence, they approve and desire for it, but they are not actually doing it. The use of person- centered and non-linear methods, such as the Dark Character Cube, seem helpful in the advancement of a coherent theory of a biopsychosocial model of dark character.
Ursula K. Le Guin's 1970 short story Vaster than Empires and More Slow stages a group of scientists exploring a planet covered by a sentient vegetal network. The meeting between this group, steeped in interpersonal conflict, and the planetary sentience invites us to question agonistic visions of social life – visions in which competition appears as a “natural law” pruning the losers and letting the fittest thrive.
Despite increased focus on emotional language, research lacks for the most emotional language: Swearing. We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate whether swear words have content distinct from function words, and if so, whether this content is emotional or social in nature. Stimuli included swear (e.g. shit, damn), negative but non-swear (e.g. kill, sick), open-class neutral (e.g. wood, lend), and closed-class neutral words (e.g. while, whom). Behaviourally, swears were recognised slower than valence- and arousal- matched negative words, meaning that there is more to the expressive dimension than merely a heightened emotional state. In ERPs, both swears and negative words elicited a larger positivity (250–550 ms) than open-class neutral words. Later, swears elicited a larger late positivity (550–750 ms) than negative words. We associate the earlier positivity effect with attention due to negative valence, and the later positivity effect with pragmatics due to social tabooness. Our findings suggest a view in which expressives are not merely function words or emotional words. Rather, expressives are emotionally and socially significant. Swears are more than what is indicated by valence ore arousal alone.
A national dialogue on school discipline has now reemerged in the United States as many educators struggle with how to maintain a balance of cultural responsiveness and high expectations when addressing student transgressions on their campuses. While the field of child development, counseling psychology, and communications pose theoretical responses to such dilemmas, this article aims specifically to address the procedural challenges of dealing with verbal abuse from students and adults. Through the lens of a social justice educator, the author offers practical, humanizing steps that are intended to help secondary school educators engage with students in a way that emphasizes boundaries, respect, and reflection for students and adults alike.
In Study 1, the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) was administered to 425 undergraduates. Analyses yielded a three component solution comprising (a) rumination, (b) magnification, and (c) helplessness. In Study 2, 30 undergraduate participants were classified as catastrophizers (n = 15) or noncatastrophizers (n = 15) on the basis of their PCS scores and participated in an cold pressor procedure. Catastrophizers reported significantly more negative pain-related thoughts, greater emotional distress, and greater pain intensity than noncatastrophizers. Study 3 examined the relation between PCS scores, negative pain-related thoughts, and distress in 28 individuals undergoing an aversive electrodiagnostic medical procedure. Catastrophizers reported more negative pain-related thoughts, more emotional distress, and more pain than noncatastrophizers. Study 4 examined the relation between the PCS and measures of depression, trait anxiety, negative affectivity, and fear of pain. Analyses revealed moderate correlations among these measures, but only the PCS contributed significant unique variance to the prediction of pain intensity.
In Study I, the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) was administered to 425 undergraduates. Analyses yielded a three component solution comprising (a) rumination, (b) magnification, and (c) helplessness. In Study 2, 30 undergraduate participants were classified as catastrophizers (
n = 15) or noncatastrophizers (
n = 15) on the basis of their PCS scores and participated in a cold pressor procedure. Catastrophizers reported significantly more negative pain-related thoughts, greater emotional distress, and greater pain intensity than noncatastrophizers. Study 3 examined the relation between PCS scores, negative pain-related thoughts, and distress in 28 individuals undergoing an aversive electrodiagnostic medical procedure. Catastrophizers reported more negative pain-related thoughts, more emotional distress, and more pain than noncatastrophizers. Study 4 examined the relation between the PCS and measures of depression, trait anxiety, negative affectivity, and fear of pain. Analyses revealed moderate correlations among these measures, but only the PCS contributed significant unique variance to the prediction of pain intensity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The present chapter provides an overview of the physiology of the cardiovascular system and its central and peripheral autonomic and neuroendocrine controls. It then discusses common psychophysiological measures from the methodological, analytic, and interpretative perspectives. Finally, it highlights a few current issues and themes in the contemporary literature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Severe aphasia, adult left hemispherectomy, Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS), and other neurological disorders have in common an increased use of swearwords. There are shared linguistic features in common across these language behaviors, as well as important differences. We explore the nature of swearing in normal human communication, and then compare the clinical presentations of selectively preserved, impaired and augmented swearing. These neurolinguistic observations, considered along with related neuroanatomical and neurochemical information, provide the basis for considering the neurobiological foundation of various types of swearing behaviors.
In research with animals as well as samples of chronic pain patients and elderly persons, pain has been positively correlated with measures of irritability, hostility, and aggression. The present investigation examined the relationship of pain tolerance with aggression. 72 men participated in the Response Choice Aggression Paradigm, described previously by Zeichner and colleagues, in which aggressive response to provocation was possible but not required of participants. Subjective pain tolerance, defined as maximal electrical shock willingly tolerated by participants, was assessed. Significant but small Pearson product-moment correlations between pain tolerance and aggression ranged between .21 and .32, with the largest accounting for 9% of variance.
Two studies were designed to explore the cross-situational nature of catastrophising and the emotions associated with pain and catastrophising. The crosssituational consistency of catastrophising in response to a finger-pressure procedure and during an episode of headache pain was examined in the first study. The second study examined differences between catastrophisers and noncatastrophisers with respect to state and trait measures of positive and negative emotions. Results of study one indicated that almost half of the subjects remained consistent in their classification as catastrophiser or noncatastrophiser in both pain situations. The majority of subjects that switched classification changed from being classified as catastrophisers during the headache experience to noncatastrophisers during the finger-pressure procedure. Results of the second study indicated that catastrophisers experienced significantly greater fear, sadness, anger, hostility, guilt, disgust, and shame during the finger-pressure procedure as compared to noncatastrophisers. Unexpectedly, catastrophisers were not a homogeneous group in regard to the pattern of negative emotions reported. Catastrophisers with headaches experienced greater sadness in response to finger-pressure pain than catastrophisers without headaches. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
Reproduces the original paper by J. M. Harlow on the case of Phineas Gage, a railroad foreman in Vermont in the mid-nineteenth century, who suffered frontal lobe damage when an iron bar passed entirely through his head. Gage lived 12 yrs after the accident but suffered personality changes that suggested a loss of equilibrium between intellect and emotion. Harlow's paper is one of the first accounts of the long-term psychological consequences of frontal lobe damage and is a good description of the kind of personality changes that result. (0 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The tendency to "catastrophize" during painful stimulation contributes to more intense pain experience and increased emotional distress. Catastrophizing has been broadly conceived as an exaggerated negative "mental set" brought to bear during painful experiences. Although findings have been consistent in showing a relation between catastrophizing and pain, research in this area has proceeded in the relative absence of a guiding theoretical framework. This article reviews the literature on the relation between catastrophizing and pain and examines the relative strengths and limitations of different theoretical models that could be advanced to account for the pattern of available findings. The article evaluates the explanatory power of a schema activation model, an appraisal model, an attention model, and a communal coping model of pain perception. It is suggested that catastrophizing might best be viewed from the perspective of hierarchical levels of analysis, where social factors and social goals may play a role in the development and maintenance of catastrophizing, whereas appraisal-related processes may point to the mechanisms that link catastrophizing to pain experience. Directions for future research are suggested.
The use of swearwords is a considerable societal phenomenon. Whereas swearing is unacceptable and forbidden under some circumstances, it is quite common and even popular in others. Although some scientific attention has been directed at the content of swearwords, virtually nothing is known about people’s reasons to swear, or about the (perceived) efficacy of swearing. In the present study, 72 female undergraduate students completed several questionnaires pertaining to swearing, aggression, and life satisfaction. It was found that respondents reported to swear quite regularly, that the expression of negative emotions was the most prominent reason to swear, and that respondents realised that swearing is not a very fruitful reaction. Furthermore, while swearing was associated with various other forms of aggression, it was not correlated with (lack of) life satisfaction.
• Fear, rage and pain, and the pangs of hunger are all primitive experiences which human beings share with the lower animals. These experiences are properly classed as among the most powerful that determine the action of men and beasts. A knowledge of the conditions which attend these experiences, therefore, is of general and fundamental importance in the interpretation of behavior. During the past four years there has been conducted, in the Harvard Physiological Laboratory, a series of investigations concerned with the bodily changes which occur in conjunction with pain, hunger and the major emotions. A group of remarkable alterations in the bodily economy have been discovered. Because these physiological adaptations are interesting both in themselves and in their interpretation, it has seemed worth while to gather together in convenient form the original accounts of the experiments, which have been published in various American medical and physiological journals. I have, however, attempted to arrange the results and discussions in an orderly and consecutive manner, and I have tried also to eliminate or incidentally to explain the technical terms, so that the exposition will be easily understood by any intelligent reader even though not trained in the medical sciences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
• Fear, rage and pain, and the pangs of hunger are all primitive experiences which human beings share with the lower animals. These experiences are properly classed as among the most powerful that determine the action of men and beasts. A knowledge of the conditions which attend these experiences, therefore, is of general and fundamental importance in the interpretation of behavior. During the past four years there has been conducted, in the Harvard Physiological Laboratory, a series of investigations concerned with the bodily changes which occur in conjunction with pain, hunger and the major emotions. A group of remarkable alterations in the bodily economy have been discovered. Because these physiological adaptations are interesting both in themselves and in their interpretation, it has seemed worth while to gather together in convenient form the original accounts of the experiments, which have been published in various American medical and physiological journals. I have, however, attempted to arrange the results and discussions in an orderly and consecutive manner, and I have tried also to eliminate or incidentally to explain the technical terms, so that the exposition will be easily understood by any intelligent reader even though not trained in the medical sciences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Fear and/or anxiety about pain is a useful construct, in both theoretical and clinical terms. This article describes the development and refinement of the Fear of Pain Questionnaire (FPQ), which exists in its most current form as the FPQ-III. Factor analytic refinement resulted in a 30-item FPQ-III which consists of Severe Pain, Minor Pain, and Medical Pain subscales. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the FPQ-III were found to be good. Four studies are presented, including normative data for samples of inpatient chronic pain patients, general medical outpatients, and unselected undergraduates. High fear of pain individuals had greater avoidance/escape from a pain-relevant Behavioral Avoidance Test with Video, relative to their low fear counterparts, suggesting predictive validity. Chronic pain patients reported the greatest fear of severe pain. Directions for future research with the FPQ-III are discussed, along with general comments about the relation of fear and anxiety to pain.
There is growing evidence for the idea that in back pain patients, pain-related fear (fear of pain/physical activity/(re)injury) may be more disabling than pain itself. A number of questionnaires have been developed to quantify pain-related fears, including the Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire (FABQ), the Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia (TSK), and the Pain Anxiety Symptoms Scale (PASS). A total of 104 patients, presenting to a rehabilitation center or a comprehensive pain clinic with chronic low back pain were studied in three independent studies aimed at (1) replicating that pain-related fear is more disabling than pain itself (2) investigating the association between pain-related fear and poor behavioral performance and (3) investigating whether pain-related fear measures are better predictors of disability and behavioral performance than measures of general negative affect or general negative pain beliefs (e.g. pain catastrophizing). All three studies showed similar results. Highest correlations were found among the pain-related fear measures and measures of self-reported disability and behavioral performance. Even when controlling for sociodemographics, multiple regression analyses revealed that the subscales of the FABQ and the TSK were superior in predicting self-reported disability and poor behavioral performance. The PASS appeared more strongly associated with pain catastrophizing and negative affect, and was less predictive of pain disability and behavioral performance. Implications for chronic back pain assessment, prevention and treatment are discussed.
Until the 1960s, pain was considered an inevitable sensory response to tissue damage. There was little room for the affective dimension of this ubiquitous experience, and none whatsoever for the effects of genetic differences, past experience, anxiety, or expectation. In recent years, great advances have been made in our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie pain and in the treatment of people who complain of pain. The roles of factors outside the patient's body have also been clarified. Pain is probably the most common symptomatic reason to seek medical consultation. All of us have headaches, burns, cuts, and other pains at some time during childhood and adult life. Individuals who undergo surgery are almost certain to have postoperative pain. Ageing is also associated with an increased likelihood of chronic pain. Health-care expenditures for chronic pain are enormous, rivalled only by the costs of wage replacement and welfare programmes for those who do not work because of pain. Despite improved knowledge of underlying mechanisms and better treatments, many people who have chronic pain receive inadequate care.
Animal studies suggest that fear inhibits pain whereas anxiety enhances it; however it is unclear whether these effects generalize to humans. The present study examined the effects of experimentally induced fear and anxiety on radiant heat pain thresholds. Sixty male and female human subjects were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 emotion induction conditions: (1) fear, induced by exposure to three brief shocks; (2) anxiety, elicited by the threat of shock; (3) neutral, with no intervention. Pain thresholds were tested before and after emotion induction. Results suggest that findings from animal studies extend to humans: fear resulted in decreased pain reactivity, while anxiety led to increased reactivity. Pain rating data indicated that participants used consistent subjective criteria to indicate pain thresholds. Both subjective and physiological indicators (skin conductance level, heart rate) confirmed that the treatment conditions produced the targeted emotional states. These results support the view that emotional states modulate human pain reactivity.
Increased anxiety is believed to correlate with increased pain sensitivity in men and women. However, one laboratory-based study and one clinical-based study have offered evidence to suggest that the effect of anxiety in modulating pain sensitivity is specific to men only. The aim of the present study was to examine further whether anxiety differentially effects men and women's report of experimentally induced pain.
One hundred forty-four healthy university students (75 women, 69 men) were exposed to a contact heat pain procedure (ascending method of limits procedure, baseline temperature 30 degrees C, +/- 0.2 degrees C, rate of change 2.0 degrees C/s, cut-off limit 52 degrees C) and a cold pressor pain procedure (constant temperature +1 degrees C; +/-1 degrees C, cut-off limit 240 s).
The results agreed with the previous two studies indicating a sex-specific effect of anxiety on pain report. Male participants scoring above the median on the Trait Anxiety Inventory reported significantly greater pain intensity, unpleasantness and showed lower pain tolerance compared to males scoring below the median on the cold pressor pain procedure, while no such differences in cold pressor pain report were found between high and low anxious women. No effect of anxiety was found on measures taken from the contact heat pain procedure, indicating that the sex-specific effect of anxiety on laboratory induced pain is dependent upon the method of stimulation used.
Anxiety is an important factor when considering gender differences in pain perception and warrants further investigation.
Research studies of 'audioanalgesia', the ability of music to affect pain perception, have significantly increased in number during the past two decades. Listening to preferred music in particular may provide an emotionally engaging distraction capable of reducing both the sensation of pain itself and the accompanying negative affective experience. The current study uses experimentally induced cold pressor pain to compare the effects of preferred music to two types of distracting stimuli found effective within the previous studies; mental arithmetic, a cognitive distraction, and humour, which may emotionally engage us in a similar manner to music. Forty-four participants (24 females, 20 males) underwent three cold pressor trials in counterbalanced order. The Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task provided the cognitive distraction and a choice was given from three types of audiotaped stand-up comedy. Participants provided their own preferred music. A circulating and cooling water bath administered cold pressor stimulation. Tolerance time, pain intensity on visual analogue scale and the pain rating index and perceived control were measured. Preferred music listening was found to significantly increase tolerance in comparison to the cognitive task, and significantly increase perceived control in comparison to humour. Ratings of pain intensity did not significantly differ. The results suggest preferred music listening to offer effective distraction and enhancement of control as a pain intervention under controlled laboratory conditions.
Unlabelled:
Elevated fear of pain is believed to denote a potential mechanism through which pain is maintained over time; however, our knowledge about fear of pain, its measurement, and its conceptualization is far from complete. It has been assumed that the latent structure of fear of pain is multidimensional and continuous. Although there is factor analytic evidence that it is multidimensional, there have been no empiric efforts to establish whether fear of pain is continuous or discontinuous (ie, taxonic or dichotomous latent class variable) in nature. Using taxometric methods in a sample of 650 patients seeking treatment for musculoskeletal or headache pain, we evaluated the latent structure of fear of pain as indexed by the Pain Anxiety Symptoms Scale. Results from analyses of simulated Monte Carlo data, MAXEIG-HITMAX, and MAMBAC and L-mode external consistency tests indicated that the latent structure of fear of pain was nontaxonic, characterized by latent continuity. Results are discussed in relation to the conceptual understanding of fear of pain, implications for treatment, and future directions for research on issues pertinent to pain-related fear.
Perspective:
This article presents an analysis designed to establish whether fear of pain is continuous or discontinuous in clinical samples. The findings, indicating that fear of pain is continuous, are important for understanding the nature of fear of pain and to designing appropriately targeted interventions.
Prior work indicates that exposure to fear-inducing shock inhibits finger-withdrawal to radiant heat in humans (hypoalgesia), whereas anxiety induced by threat of shock enhances reactivity (hyperalgesia; Pain 84 (2000) 65-75). Although finger-withdrawal latencies are thought to reflect changes in pain sensitivity, additional measures of pain are needed to determine whether pain perception is altered. The present study examined the impact of negative affect on visual analog scale (VAS) ratings of fixed duration thermal stimuli. One hundred twenty-seven male and female human subjects were randomly assigned to one of three emotion-induction conditions: (1) negative affect induced by exposure to three brief shocks; (2) negative affect elicited by the threat of shock without presentation; and (3) neutral affect, with no intervention. VAS ratings were tested before and after emotion-induction. Results suggest that both negative affect manipulations reduced pain. Manipulation checks indicated that the emotion-induction treatments induced similar levels of fear but with different arousal levels. Potential mechanisms for affect induced changes in pain are discussed.
Recent findings from a sample of patients with acute and chronic musculoskeletal pain and headache indicate that fear of pain is characterized by latent continuity; that is, it is non-taxonic. It remains to be determined whether the latent structure of fear of pain is consistent between patients seeking treatment for pain versus those drawn from representative community samples. The purpose of the present investigation was to determine if the latent structure of fear of pain is characterized by latent continuity in a representative community sample of older adults. Using taxometric methods in a sample of 459 community dwelling older adults, we sought to evaluate the latent structure of fear of pain as indexed by the Pain Anxiety Symptoms Scale. Results from analyses of simulated Monte Carlo data, MAXEIG-HITMAX, and L-mode consistency tests indicated that the latent structure of fear of pain in this sample was the same as that previously reported in clinical samples, being non-taxonic and characterized by latent continuity. These findings confirm initial findings that fear of pain, at least as measured by the Pain Anxiety Symptoms Scale, is continuous, occurring along a latent continuum ranging from low to high. Results are discussed in relation to the conceptual understanding of fear of pain, implications for assessment and treatment, and future research directions.
Applied Multiple Regression/ Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences NJ: LEA; 2003. 18 Rutherford A. Introducing ANOVA and ANCOVA: a GLM approach
- J Cohen
- P Cohen
- Sg West
- Ls Aiken
Cohen J, Cohen P, West SG, Aiken LS. Applied Multiple Regression/
Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. 3rd ed. Mahwah, NJ: LEA;
2003.
18 Rutherford A. Introducing ANOVA and ANCOVA: a GLM approach.
London: Sage; 2001.
The stuff of thought. Language as a window into human nature
- S Pinker
Pinker S. The stuff of thought. Language as a window into human nature.
New York: Viking; 2007.
The anatomy of swearing. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
- A Montagu
Montagu A. The anatomy of swearing. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press; 2001.
Is the latent structure of fear of pain continuous or discontinuous among pain patients? Taxometric analysis of the pain anxiety symptoms scale
- Asmundson
The anatomy of swearing
- Montagu
Relationship of pain tolerance with human aggression
- Niel
The stuff of thought
- Pinker
Development of the Fear of Pain Questionnaire-III
- McNeill