A "foolish and wicked practice"

I recently joined a book club about American Presidents.  Our first meeting later this week will discuss a wonderful biography by Joseph J. Ellis about our first President of the United States, George Washington ("His Excellency George Washington").  As I was reading about President Washington, I came across something that he once said, "The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despites it."  He is absolutely correct (well, of course he is right, he is the "Father of Our Country").

There is really no excuse for swearing and cursing.  I think leaders who swear or curse in public do themselves a great disservice.  Even if they are trying to make a point, these leaders end up setting such a poor example that the point is long lost.  I have learned over time (and in many ways, I am still learning) that swearing and cursing is just not appropriate.  I have learned, perhaps through the wisdom of experience and maturity (i.e. "older age") that profanity is just not a tool to be used to get my point across.  It's a lesson that I have learned the hard way. 

I remember once, probably at least 20 years ago, when I was talking to my son - he was probably five years old or so at the time.  I don't remember exactly the context, but I may have been reading him a bedtime story or something like that.  I told him, "You are a really good boy."  He replied, "You are a really good Daddy.  You haven't said 'Goddamitt in a really long time."  From the mouths of babes...

Inevitably, as I was looking through one of several stacks of papers at home ("tsundoku"), I came across a couple of interesting clinical papers that I apparently had once found interesting enough to save.  I suspect that this would not be a surprise to anyone, but there is probably one time (and only one time) when swearing might be okay.  Two studies - "Swearing as a response to pain" by Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston and a follow-up by the same group, "Swearing as a response to pain - effect of daily swearing frequency") - suggest that swearing increases our tolerance to pain.  In the first study, these investigators used a fairly well known, objective measure of pain tolerance - placing your hands into a bucket of ice and measuring the amount of time that you can stand it before pulling your hands out.  Swearing increased the duration of time that subjects could hold their hands in the bucket of ice and decreased the subjective perception of pain.  The investigators suggested that swearing induced a "flight or fight" response (notably, swearing also increased subjects' heart rates) that essentially inhibited the link between fear of pain and pain perception.  Interestingly enough, swearing increased the tolerance of pain to a similar degree in both male and female subjects; however, the increase in heart rate and the decrease in the subjective perception of pain were more pronounced in females compared to males.  The investigators hypothesized that males swear more than females (though they did not provide evidence to support), so in the follow-up study, they showed that swearing on a regular basis (determined by self-report) basically eliminated any benefit to swearing on subsequent pain tolerance.

So, to summarize.  Leaders should follow George Washington's advice and not swear or curse in the workplace.  If George Washington isn't enough for you, try this one.  Leaders should stop swearing so that the next time that they step on a nail, touch a hot stove, or hit a hammer against their finger while trying to hammer a nail, the use of profanity can decrease the pain!