katy: [00:00:00] All right guys. Well, just like we've done every other season or, uh, last several seasons at least we've done a long episode, which is what was last week, and then we've broken up the long episodes for mine and Laura Sanity and the mini episodes. All right? So it helps us with the time and it helps us be able to put more content and effort into the long episodes since we're both full-time mom, full-time working, and full-time in this.
So to help us, we are talking in season 13, this mini episode series, we're gonna be talking about extremely niche scientists and how there are scientists who specialize in absolute weirdest subjects and study some of the most bizarre topics.
laura: Yeah, I'm, we're really excited about who we found because I, I love talking about like, you know, misunderstood animals or like underappreciated animals. These are the underappreciated scientists.
katy: do you wanna go first?
laura: Sure.
So my first?
person, , I wanted to also spread out [00:01:00] my niche scientists between different areas of science. , So it's gonna cover a wide range here. Up first is Dr. Richard
Stevens, who looks at swearing
and I was like, how appropriate I am about to go into labor probably any day now, and I need some help in pain
reduction and
katy: Or any minute, really.
laura: Yeah, yeah, truly.
katy: Yeah. Right.
laura: So Dr. Stevens is a
senior lecturer of psychology at Keel University in the United Kingdom. He has, about 30 years of experience, or a little over 30 years of experience in psychology, and he has developed an international reputation for research, on emotional language, specifically swearing.
So basically what are the psychological benefits of swearing? And I was like, okay, I'm in, I'm invested. Let's see what it says. Not that I like swear a lot, but I swear strategically. , So like I get a lot of umph when I do it. In June of 2015, he, [00:02:00] published a book called Black Sheep, the Hidden Benefits of Being Bad. So you feel free to read his book. And he's a huge proponent of science
communication with his research. He has talked about this everywhere. And he really feels like communication, which makes sense. That's what he's kind of studying is communication and psychology and stuff. How important that is. So I just wanted to read you a
couple of his paper titles because they're just hilarious and it gives you the idea of what he does. So let's
see. Using expletives to enhance therapeutic outcomes, a case report. Effective swearing on strength.
Frankly, we do give a damn improving patient outcomes with swearing.
Swearing is a response to pain taboo. Gesticulations is a response to pain. Does emotional
arousal influence swearing, fluency, and just swearing the language of life and
death? So like a lot of just cool stuff,
katy: Yeah. How many different [00:03:00] ways can I Yeah. Yeah. 'cause it's, it is from different angles or like with twists. So probably his most famous
laura: study.
He, and, and
to be fair, all of these researchers that we're talking about today, probably in yours included, nobody is a lone wolf owl here. Right? Like, all these papers and all these studies include multiple
people. So I'm
not trying to like just wash over everybody else's contribution. It's just his thing.
katy: We're not, we're not blanketing out the ET alls here. It's gonna be just happens to be the primary researcher on
laura: Right. So his, like their first foray into this was swearing and pain tolerance. So here's the study. The participants had to dip their hand in freezing water. They did this on their college students in their classes. They signed
katy: Of course they did.
laura: Yeah. So they had to
dip their
hand in freezing water until they could
no longer do so like it became painful.
The water was so cold, they could then use a control word, which they asked. Okay. Give me a word to describe a table. So like brown, [00:04:00] like that's a control word versus one of their top five swear words.
After the hand was removed, the researchers looked at their pain perception, like what they perceived pain as, and their heart rate.
So like the physical and the emotional.
katy: Yeah.
laura: The results show that the patients could withstand the pain for longer by repeating a swear word and it lowered pain perception. And, while increasing heart rate. So like your heart might've sped up, but in general you could tolerate the pain for longer.
So they came to the conclusion that, , it's called
hyperalgesic effect is pain lowering may occur because swearing induces a fight or flight response and
nullifies the link between fear of pain and pain perception. So you're swearing your brain is thinking like this is an emergency. I'm using a radical word here, right? So as soon as you do, your
brain is , this is an emergency fight or flight kicks in and then fight or flight reduces [00:05:00] pain in general, like
you can do crazy things. When that has started,
katy: yeah.
laura: he's also looked at the use of traditional versus new swear
words in response to pain.
katy: Swear words versus
laura: made up, which is I'm constantly feeling like I'm
using made up ones because of like having
to use
katy: Oh, made up ones.
Oh, I'm all the time. Yeah.
laura: son of a nutcracker. Yeah. Yeah.
katy: Yeah.
laura: So participants used four words, fuck, ouch, and twist pipe and a neutral word. Okay. Uch, ouch. And
twist
katy: So wait, the, so he had, so wait, he had all the researcher, all the kids
with they couldn't pick those swear
laura: right? those were
the four words
They had to use. One was a real swear word. Two were made up and one was a
control, like a neutral word in response to pain. Probably just like hour or something.
katy: Okay.
laura: Ouch. And twist pipe
did have emotional and humor responses. Like of course you'd laugh saying something like that, like I do with some words,[00:06:00]
but.
Did not help with pain, pain, threshold tolerance
only. Fuck did, and it increased pain
tolerance by
katy: I mean,
laura: That's a
lot.
katy: Hmm.
It is a lot. But I wonder too, I wonder too, if he let them pick their own made up words,
laura: it would break
how
katy: you know what I mean? Like, would that help? Because then it's your, your own brain's perception of
what
laura: they did
katy: quote unquote swear
laura: they were allowed to choose one of their five
favorites. But I don't know if they
came up with a pain
threshold number in that one.
But although it's really
awesome that this is in effect, and I'm certainly going to use this to my advantage during labor and,
katy: Right?
laura: can become habituate.
This is, this is like
any behavior. You can become habituated. So they found in another study that the more, more
regularly you swear in everyday life, the less of an effect this has overall. Because your brain is just
used to it, you're no longer thrown into fight or flight. And then lastly,
katy: Yeah. [00:07:00] It's just a normal
laura: yeah, right, yeah, it doesn't do anything for you anymore. Lastly, another interesting one they did was looking at swearing and its effect on strength and power performance. Does swearing make you physically stronger? Like when you're at the
gym, I'm like, Ugh. You know, like I just,
katy: Yeah.
laura: when people, when you just drop an F-bomb while you're
lifting a ox. So participants had to do anaerobic and
isometric exercises while either swearing or using a neutral word. The participants did have greater performance while swearing. But unlike in the pain one, it did not affect heart rate, blood pressure, or what's called skin conductance. So they don't know why. Like it didn't, it's not a fight or flight.
Is it just purely psychological, like you can just
power through it
katy: Yeah.
laura: physical,
katy: Interesting.
laura: So, uh, if you start just
drop, just start swearing while you're power lifting, you can do
more.
katy: [00:08:00] apparently it works.
Yeah,
it works. We just don't know
why,
laura: Yeah, it's fascinating. So swearing not always appropriate in all contexts, but helpful
in some
katy: yeah. But it works. All right, that was a good one. So that's our first mini episode. Like we said, next week we'll have another regular length episode, and then week after that we'll be back with another niche scientist and then so on and so forth for the rest of season 13, guys. So go check us out on Patreon, follow us on social media, wildly Curious podcast, and we will talk to you next
laura: Bye.
