Eight years ago we covered the latest swearing research from Keele University, also led by a senior lecturer Richard Stevenswho has become the world’s greatest curse word researcher. It was found that swearing provided some sort of power boost, but the mechanism behind this was not well understood.
In this new study, Stephens and his team have shown that swearing does indeed improve physical performance and self-confidence – by blocking the urge to think too much and allowing one to perform better. At the heart of this was the hypothesis of psychological ‘state disinhibition’ – the idea that swearing can temporarily reduce internal constraints, allowing people to push themselves harder than they normally would.
“In many situations we hold ourselves back and therefore limit our chances of success,” says Stephens of Keele’s School of Psychology. “We see this when someone has a fear of public speaking, which can prevent individuals from expressing ideas or pursuing personal and professional opportunities, or when athletes return from injury and often show hesitation and reduced self-confidence.
“This new research shows how swearing boosts us by putting us in a more uninhibited state, allowing individuals to feel more focused, confident and overcome internal limitations,” he added. “It confirms our theory that swearing can act as a simple, cheap psychological tool that helps people not hold back and go for it a little more. In short, swearing helps us stop overthinking and start doing.”
In the study, the team conducted two experiments – with 88 and 94 participants respectively – repeating an earlier experiment with 118 participants. It involved volunteers performing a physically demanding but simple task: lifting their body weight from a chair and holding it for as long as possible, with their arms resting on the armrests. During the task, they repeated a self-chosen swear word or a neutral word every two seconds. Each participant met both conditions, allowing the researchers to directly compare the performance of the same person. As expected – and something that was replicated across all experiments – people consistently held the position longer when they repeated their chosen swear word.
“These effects could have valuable applications in sports, rehabilitation and any situation that requires courage or assertiveness,” Stephens said. “In this way, swearing could serve as an accessible way to unlock our full potential when peak performance is needed.”
The more complex part of the study focused on what happened in the participants’ minds during those moments of exertion while chairlifting. Participants completed detailed questionnaires measuring confidence, focus, distraction, emotional state and whether they felt less inhibited or self-conscious. In individual experiments, the results were inconsistent, but when the researchers combined the three data sets, a clear pattern emerged.
Swearing reliably increased feelings of mental flow, boosted self-confidence, and distracted participants from discomfort and negative thoughts. Overall, these factors explained a significant portion of the performance improvement. Moreover, humor – which was believed to help – did not play a significant role.
So while swearing didn’t inject participants’ muscles with sudden force, it seemed to reinforce the “mind over matter” condition that can keep people from pushing themselves in challenging situations. It’s worth nothing that the effect is modest and limited to short, high-effort tasks, but it is now one of the more consistently replicated findings in exercise psychology. Essentially, swearing works by helping people get out of the way – at least for a few seconds.
“Our next step is to test whether this swearing boost works in any context where success requires overcoming hesitation,” said Nick Washmuth, a doctoral candidate at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, who contributed to the study.
The research was published in the journal American psychologist.
Source: Keele University
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