A series of experiments by Dutch researchers have offered clear insight into the weight of words, highlighting the impact of slurs on the human brain.
Revealing experiences
We are highly social beings, dependent on ever-changing dynamics of cooperation and other types of relationships to survive and thrive. Language plays a major role in these interactions, fundamentally structuring interpersonal behaviors. If words can hurt, the way our brain deals with insults remains rather obscure.
In the context of work published in the journal Frontiers in CommunicationMarijn Struiksma and colleagues at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, found thathearing insults was surprisingly similar to receiving a ” mini slap »regardless of the exact context in which they were uttered.
The team used electroencephalography (EEG) and skin conductance recordings to compare the short-term impact of repeated insults with that of positive or neutral judgments on a cohort of 79 participants. The latter were then asked to read sentences with particularly harsh value judgments (“ Linda is despicable “), compliments (” Linda is brilliant ”) or neutral, factually true descriptions (“ Linda is Dutch “). In order to assess whether the effects of these statements depended on the subject, half of them included the real names of the participants.
« Insults triggered a rapid succession or overlapping cascade of effects, affected differently by repetition », details Struiksma. « Some of them dissipated quickly, while others tended to linger. »
“Insults give mini lexical slaps”
These experiments showed that even under unnatural conditions (laboratory, no direct interaction with other humans, statements from fictitious people) insults could have a powerful effect, regardless of the person targeted or the number of repetitions. In particular, the EEG revealed an early and recurrent effect of the insult in the P2 amplitude (measured at the level of the scalp), indicating a very rapid and stable capture of emotional attention.
« Our results show that, in a psycholinguistic laboratory experiment without real interaction between speakers, insults give mini lexical slaps says Struiksma. In other words: these capture our brain’s attention immediately, as their emotional meaning is retrieved in long-term memory.
Compliments caused a less marked P2 effect, indicating a clear bias in the amount of attention allocated to negative versus positive social interactions. The next step for the team will be to assess these effects in more concrete situations.