Can you treat new dogs old tricks?

Turns out, for swearing, not really.

I was thrilled to to present my & @PsychologyRich latest research on the effects of newly created swearwords on pain at @LeedsPsyc

Thank you to everyone who came and for the wonderful discussion we had

Swearing helps us to put up with pain for longer, when compared with saying a non-swear word. This is a well documented effect in research. But we still don't know how or why swearing gives us this power. 1/n

It may be that the emotional or humorous effects of swearing are the key to pain tolerance. To test this, a team of 3 swearing experts and 3 members of the public came together and chose 2 "new" swearwords. One which was emotional ("Fouch") & one which was funny ("Twizpipe") 2/n

In the experiment, we recruited participants who put their hands in ice-cold water for as long as possible. Participants were asked to repeat one of the following words while their hand was in the water: fuck; twizpipe; fouch; or a word to describe a table. 3/n

Our results found that, for pain, nothing beats a good fuck.

When participants swore they could tolerate the pain for significantly longer when compared to the other words.

There was no impact of the new swearwords or the table word (control) on pain tolerance. 4/n

We still don't know exactly how swearing helps us with pain but we think that the part of the effects must come from how we learn swearwords and what they mean socially and in specific contexts. Rather than down to their proposed humorous or emotional qualities. 5/n

So my final takeaway?

While it might feel fun to exclaim "Twizpipe" (game of bogeys anyone?), it's not scientifically recommended during pain.

Stick to the tried and true 4 letter words that we know & love. 6/6