Hurt feelings and four letter words: Swearing alleviates the pain of social distress

<strong>–– Manuscript under review at the European Journal of Social Psychology ––</strong> <strong>Preprint manuscript (</strong>11 December 2015<strong>)</strong> Abstract Research from the past 40 years demonstrates that social and physical pain are inextricably linked. Correspondingly, methods for alleviating physical pain are increasingly found to also attenuate feelings of social pain. Recent evidence suggests that swearing may serve to reduce feelings of physical pain. Given the considerable overlap between social and physical pain, the present study examined whether swearing similarly attenuates feelings of social pain and the consequences of social distress. Seventy participants first wrote about an experience of exclusion (or inclusion) to manipulate feelings of social distress. Participants then repeated a self-selected swear word (or neutral word) for two minutes followed by measures of psychological and physiological pain. Among exclusion-primed participants, swearing attenuated the psychological and physiological consequences of social distress. The results demonstrate that verbal swearing may reduce feelings of pain associated with social distress. The findings offer further evidence that social and physical pain are functionally analogous.