Every culture has words that are taboo or foul. Sigmund Freud was one of the first practitioners to use these for strategic effect to make a point or elicit an emotional reaction in the listener. They can be useful tools in interpersonal and therapeutic contexts.

A study from Jay & Jay suggests swearing isn’t a lack of intelligence or a lack of ability to articulate effectively. Rather, swearing appears to be a feature of language that a skilled speaker can use in order to communicate with maximum effectiveness. Further it can be used as a tool to mitigate stress. A study from Stephens, Atkins, and Kingston had people submerge their hands in icy water and assess pain tolerance (duration), pain perception (rating), and heart rate. Swearing increased pain tolerance, decreased perceived pain compared with not swearing, and increased heart rate. They explain “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.”

Psychologist Timothy Jay and cognitive scientist Bergen summarize their research to suggest that profanity - depending on context - can be a tools to evoke emotional and intuitive elements in communication that go beyond mere language.

References

• L. Jay, Timothy B. Jay, Taboo word fluency and knowledge of slurs and general pejoratives: deconstructing the poverty-of-vocabulary myth, Language Sciences, Volume 52, 2015, Pages 251-259, ISSN 0388-0001, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2014.12.003.
• Stephens R, Atkins J, Kingston A. Swearing as a response to pain. Neuroreport. 2009 Aug 5;20(12):1056-60. doi: 10.1097/WNR.0b013e32832e64b1. PMID: 19590391.
• Jay & Bergen in TIME Magazine

Keywords & Nodes

• authenticity
• language
• influence
• relationships
• psychology
• To influence people use reciprocation, liking, social proof, consistency, scarcity, and/or authority.