While the dialogue at your workplace probably doesn’t sound like it belongs in a Tarantino film, the odds are high that you hear swearing — especially if you work on a marketing team or in a creative agency.

Wrike recently surveyed over 1,500 workers for a workplace behavior study and found that more than 75% have colleagues that swear openly around them, and more than half of respondents swear themselves. However, if you look only at those respondents who work in marketing or creative professions, the numbers are much higher. Four out of five say they have colleagues that swear, and 66% admit they swear at work themselves.

Given those responses, it may be safe to conclude that swearing is a large part of the creative process — perhaps even ingrained into the culture. In fact, 34% of surveyed creative & marketing professionals say that swearing “reflects the passion our team has for our work,” and 32% say it “makes conveying ideas and feelings easier.” F*ck, yeah.

Here are some other findings from our survey:

  • More women (60%) admitted to swearing than men (55%), however men who do swear in the office do it at a higher frequency than women
  • 94% say they swear more in face-to-face conversations vs. email or online communication
  • 66% say they are more likely to swear if their boss swears, while 25% report “it doesn’t matter”
  • 33% would not consider accepting a position in an organization in which swearing is strictly banned
And while it’s interesting to know that swearing is prevalent and that workers are generally comfortable with it, there’s one piece of the puzzle that our survey couldn’t answer: does it improve team dynamics and creativity?
 
Swearing and the brain

According to research conducted by psychologists at Keele University in Staffordshire, swearing happens because our brains use taboo words when emotion is high. Their study showed that “swearing increased pain tolerance, increased heart rate, and decreased perceived pain compared with not swearing.” In short, swearing helps us feel less pain in an emotional situation. Which, when you think about it, is a perfect encapsulation of life in marketing.
 
Swearing and creativity
 
So creatives and marketers experience stressful deadlines and mouth off to help deal with it. But does the act of swearing actually fuel creativity?
 
Research actually supports the fact that living life with passion — in other words, exposing yourself to intense emotion on a regular basis — increases your creative capacity, at least in comparison with those who admit that they simply feel positive or negative emotions. And research by a New York University psychology professor finds that a person’s openness to all of their extreme emotions is a better indicator of creativity than simply measuring IQ.
 
Heightened emotions, fewer inhibitions, and more spirited team communication—does swearing make you more creative? It sure as sh*t doesn’t hurt!
 
You can find the full report here.

 

By Brad Sanzenbacher, senior corporate communications manager, Wrike 

 

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