If you're after a free, simple boost for pushing through challenges, try swearing your way to your goals. A new study has uncovered the surprising psychological effect that cursing in the heat of the moment has – for the swearer, at least.
Eight years ago we covered the last swearing study from Keele University, also led by senior lecturer Richard Stephens, who has become the world's leading curse-word researcher. It established that swearing provided some kind of strength boost, but the mechanism behind this wasn't well understood.
In this new study, Stephens and team demonstrated that swearing does indeed boost physical performance and self-confidence – by blocking the urge to overthink and enabling one to perform better. At the heart of this was the hypothesis of psychological “state disinhibition” – the idea that swearing can temporarily lower internal restraints, allowing people to push themselves harder than they normally would.
“In many situations we hold ourselves back and in doing so, limit our opportunities for success," said Stephens from Keele’s School of Psychology. "We see this if someone has a fear of public speaking, that can prevent individuals from expressing ideas or seizing personal and professional opportunities, or when athletes return from injury and frequently demonstrate hesitation and reduced self-confidence.
“This new research shows how swearing gives us a boost by putting us in a more disinhibited state that helps individuals feel more focused, confident, and overcome internal constraints," he added. "It verifies our theory that swearing can act as a simple, low-cost psychological tool that helps people not hold back and go for it a little more. In short, swearing helps us to stop overthinking and start doing."
In the study, the team conducted two experiments – with 88 and 94 participants, respectively – replicating a previous one involving 118 participants. It involved volunteers performing a physically demanding but simple task – lifting their body weight off a chair and holding it for as long as possible, with their arms on the armrests. During the task, they repeated either a self-chosen swear word or a neutral word every two seconds. Each participant completed both conditions, allowing the researchers to directly compare performance within the same individual. As expected – and something that was replicated across all experiments – people consistently held the position longer when they were repeating their chosen swear word.
“These effects could have valuable applications in sport, rehabilitation, and any situation that calls for 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 was focused on what was happening in the participants' heads during those chair-lift moments of effort. Participants completed detailed questionnaires measuring confidence, focus, distraction, emotional state and whether they felt less inhibited or self-conscious. In individual experiments, results were inconsistent, but when the researchers combined the three datasets, 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 boost. What's more, humor – which has been assumed to help in the process – did not play a meaningful role.
So while swearing didn't inject the participants' muscles with sudden strength, it appeared to boost the "mind over matter" state that can see people hold back from pushing themselves in challenging situations. It's worth nothing that the effect is modest and limited to short, high-effort tasks, but it’s now one of the more consistently replicated findings in exercise psychology. Essentially, swearing works by helping people get out of their own way – at least for a few seconds.
“Our next step is testing whether this boost from swearing works in any context where success requires overcoming hesitancy," said Nick Washmuth, a PhD student at The University of Alabama in Huntsville, who contributed to the study.
The study was published in the journal American Psychologist.
Source: Keele University
