February 28, 2017 • 10 mins
Morality aside, is it ever legal to punch someone in the face? Unrelated: Researchers have identified the brain bits responsible for finding certain sounds incredibly annoying. Plus, highly profane people may be more honest.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to How Stuff Works Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum,
a researcher and writer, here at How Stuff Works every
week and bringing you three stories from our team about
the weird and wondrous advances we've seen in science, technology,
and culture. This week, researchers think they've figured out why
some sounds like chewing can be so intolerable and unrelated?
(00:24):
Is it ever legal to punch someone in the face?
But first, Magic editor Alison Loudermilk and our freelance writer
Kate Kirshner explore link between two personality traits that makes
leap good sense to me, honesty and use of profanity.
Let's think about bad things people do, lie, cheat, steal, swear.
(00:49):
Society tends to regard those first three as bad behavior,
but swearing is more nebulous. Chris warts exist because we've
separated some words into a category of profane. But while lying, cheating,
and stealing all can lead to actual injury, physical or otherwise,
swearing just violates norms. Why give it a second thought, Well,
it's important because some people make assumptions about those of
(01:10):
us who curse up a storm. They might even assume
that the swear has poor moral character. That's what Dr
David Stillwell told us. Stillwells a lecture at the University
of Cambridge's Judge Business School. He recently co authored a
study that looked at the relationship between profanity and honesty.
It published in the Journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science. First,
(01:31):
a little setup. While we often think of swearing as taboo,
which means it's just breaking those norms we mentioned earlier,
there's a school of thought that swearing is an outpouring
of genuine emotion. After all, have you ever cursed when
you felt frustrated or upset? We have, so still Will
and his colleagues set out to see if swearing was
a mark of honesty or rather a sign that a
person has other negative norm busting traits lurking behind their
(01:51):
softy tongue. For the first part of the study, they
asked two hundred and seventy six participants to write down
swear words they liked and commonly used, along with why
they used them. The researchers then had participants take a
commonly accepted measurement of honesty. They found that participants were
more likely to measure high on a scale of honesty
if they wrote down more used and like curse words,
and if they self reported higher use of cursing. The
(02:14):
researchers also noticed something interesting. People said they use profanity
to express honesty about their feelings, as opposed to trying
to insult or intimidate others. Of course, most of us
don't swear in a lab setting, so researchers went where
all real life happens the internet. Stillwell told us that
it's very difficult to study profanity because it's such a
fleeting behavior and people often don't even notice it. So
(02:35):
what to do? Where to go? Facebook? Of course, according
to Stillwell, Facebook status updates are a great way to
see what words people actually use when talking to their friends.
Using data for more than seventy thousand active Facebook users,
they found something interesting about those who curse more in
status updates. They're more likely to be honest. That is,
they were more likely to use words that are associated
with honesty. But the researchers still weren't done. They also
(02:58):
isolated the US participants of the face book study and
average their profanity scores across the states. Next, they compared
those scores to the two thousand twelve state integrity investigation.
They found that the greater the use of profanity statewide,
the higher the integrity score of the state they're from.
So there you have it. Curse away and everyone will
find you more honest. Well, hold up, The researchers only
(03:19):
studied the perspective of the person swearing, not the perspective
of the person hearing the swearing. But there's a silver lining.
If you ever find yourself on the receiving end of
a profanity laden tirade, you know there's a good chance
that the person is telling you what they really think.
Next up, senior editor Katherine Whitburn and our freelancer Dave
(03:41):
Ruse bring us an answer to a question that crossed
our minds given recent news about an assault on one
espousal of racist ideology morality aside? Is it ever legal
to punch someone in the face? Face punching in movies
and TV shows is as cliche as the angry police
chief and the one handed cliff grab. But in real life,
(04:04):
hauling off and clocking someone is not only a great
way to break your hand, it's usually illegal. You would
be Clint Eastwood's out there maybe wandering. Is there ever
a situation in which you are legally justified to pop
someone in their ugly mug. Michael schwartz Back, a California
criminal defense lawyer who's also an editor at the legal
website Nolo, says the answer is yes, but the punch
(04:25):
has to be made in self defense. In general, schwartz
Bog says, you have to not be the aggressor, and
you have to reasonably believe that forces necessary to protect
yourself from some imminent violence. You also have to use
an appropriate level of force. So here are some points
to distinguish a legal punch from an illegal. One. Number one,
you can't strike first. That would make you the aggressor.
(04:48):
It's hard to argue self defense when you're literally on
the attack. Number Two, you can only punt someone if
they have already taken a swing at you, or if
you believe you're about to be hit. Number Three, you
can't escalate the fight. If the drunk guy at the
bar doesn't like the way you're looking at him and
shoves you on the shoulder, you can't break a bottle
over his head, or punch him or kick him in
(05:08):
the goodies. You also can't use physical force against verbal attacks.
Schwartzberg says that's the most common misconception about self defense.
The whole fighting words doctrine comes from a Supreme Court
case where a man was arrested for cursing out a cop.
The man said his behavior was free expression. The court
disagreed and said that certain insults quote, by their very utterance,
(05:31):
inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of
the peace end quote. Schwartzberg adds that even if someone
threatens you and says they're gonna beat you up or
even kill you, the law doesn't give you the right
to slug them. Whether you get prosecuted for punching someone
out depends a lot on the police and what else
may be going on in your city. Schwartzbog says, if
(05:52):
you're in a big metro area, there's a scuffle at
the bar, the prosecutors are flooded by other cases, and
no one seems to be really hurt, they may not
pursue the case. But even so, you could still be
sued in civil court. If the person you punched got
a serious injury, missed work, or suffered psychological trauma from
the incident, he can sue you for damages, and you
won't see that one in the movies. Finally, this week,
(06:21):
staff editor E's Jeff Coat and our freelance writer Shelley
Danzy explain how a team of researchers honed in on
the systems in the brain responsible for the disorder in
which people find annoying sounds beyond annoying ms phonia. It's
dinner time with family and everyone's eating and tunning sounds
harmless enough, right, But for some hearing other people's crunching,
(06:44):
lip smacking, or gulping can cause anger and anxiety. Ms
Aphonia is a disorder that often evokes strong negative feelings
to certain sounds, particular things like gum chewing, pen clicking,
keyboard typing, and rattling pocket chains. Recent research published and
current biologies study the brains of people with misophonia to
see how they process emotions from certain sounds. A team
(07:05):
of scientists out of the UK and US evaluated the
data of twenty participants with misophonia and twenty two without.
People who don't have mesophonia can generally tune out everyday
sounds that may be a bit bothersome, but for people
with msophonia, the sensitivity comes from the pattern of the sound,
not its volume. While it's not known exactly how many
people have the condition, it can be debilitating for those
(07:26):
who do have it. On average, missophonia symptoms start around
age twelve, but they can appear as early as age five.
Trigger sounds often insight rage, and sometimes the sensitivity gets
so intense that actions related to specific sounds become disturbing.
Imagine a person with msophonia living with a friend, but
she doesn't want to talk because she doesn't like the
sound of her friends breathing. Sometimes people with the disorders
(07:48):
struggle in silence. The researchers studied measurements from m R
and f m R I, as well as physiological data
observing parts of the brain used for processing perceptions and emotions.
Participant heard trigger sounds like eating, breathing, and drinking. They
also heard unpleasant sounds like a baby's cry in person's screen,
and they heard neutral sounds like a busy cafe and rain.
(08:11):
Then the participants rated how annoying, triggering, or anti social
the sounds were. While the misophonic group did experience distress
typical of their disorder from the trigger sounds, the unpleasant
sounds did not produce the same response. After hearing the
trigger sounds, the mesophonic group experienced increased heart rates and
galvanic or electric skin responses. According to the authors, these
(08:33):
responses are consistent with mesophonic tendencies to have a fight
or flight response to trigger sounds. The misophonics in the
study also exhibited abnormal salience detection, meaning the trigger sounds
stood out more for them, so parts of the brain
involved in determining salience were more active in mesophonics than
in non mesophonics. The trigger sounds targeted the mesophonics anterior
insular cortex of the brain, a network that directs our
(08:56):
attention towards stimuli that are meaningful to us, along with
their parts of the brain related to processing and regulating emotion.
Participants also responded to body consciousness questions about their inner
and outer perception. The researchers found that people with mesophonia
were more aware of internal bodily sensations than those without
the condition. The researchers data doesn't show whether this unusual
(09:17):
internal perception is a cause or result of misophonia, but
the researchers are optimistic that further research can be directed
to quiet the brain structures related to the condition. That's
our show for this week. Thank you so much for
tuning in. Further thanks to our audio producer Dylan Fagin
and our editorial liaison Alison louder Milk. Subscribe to now
(09:41):
Now for more of the latest science news and send
us links to anything you'd like to hear us covered,
plus a picture of a velvet painting that you really like.
I just sort of accidentally bought one that features of Conquistadore.
You can send us an email at now podcast at
how stuff Works dot com, and of course, for lots
more stories like these, head on over to our home
planet now dot has stuff works dot com. Mmmmm
Welcome to How Stuff Works Now. I'm your host, Lauren Vogelbaum,
a researcher and writer, here at How Stuff Works every
week and bringing you three stories from our team about
the weird and wondrous advances we've seen in science, technology,
and culture. This week, researchers think they've figured out why
some sounds like chewing can be so intolerable and unrelated?
(00:24):
Is it ever legal to punch someone in the face?
But first, Magic editor Alison Loudermilk and our freelance writer
Kate Kirshner explore link between two personality traits that makes
leap good sense to me, honesty and use of profanity.
Let's think about bad things people do, lie, cheat, steal, swear.
(00:49):
Society tends to regard those first three as bad behavior,
but swearing is more nebulous. Chris warts exist because we've
separated some words into a category of profane. But while lying, cheating,
and stealing all can lead to actual injury, physical or otherwise,
swearing just violates norms. Why give it a second thought, Well,
it's important because some people make assumptions about those of
(01:10):
us who curse up a storm. They might even assume
that the swear has poor moral character. That's what Dr
David Stillwell told us. Stillwells a lecture at the University
of Cambridge's Judge Business School. He recently co authored a
study that looked at the relationship between profanity and honesty.
It published in the Journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science. First,
(01:31):
a little setup. While we often think of swearing as taboo,
which means it's just breaking those norms we mentioned earlier,
there's a school of thought that swearing is an outpouring
of genuine emotion. After all, have you ever cursed when
you felt frustrated or upset? We have, so still Will
and his colleagues set out to see if swearing was
a mark of honesty or rather a sign that a
person has other negative norm busting traits lurking behind their
(01:51):
softy tongue. For the first part of the study, they
asked two hundred and seventy six participants to write down
swear words they liked and commonly used, along with why
they used them. The researchers then had participants take a
commonly accepted measurement of honesty. They found that participants were
more likely to measure high on a scale of honesty
if they wrote down more used and like curse words,
and if they self reported higher use of cursing. The
(02:14):
researchers also noticed something interesting. People said they use profanity
to express honesty about their feelings, as opposed to trying
to insult or intimidate others. Of course, most of us
don't swear in a lab setting, so researchers went where
all real life happens the internet. Stillwell told us that
it's very difficult to study profanity because it's such a
fleeting behavior and people often don't even notice it. So
(02:35):
what to do? Where to go? Facebook? Of course, according
to Stillwell, Facebook status updates are a great way to
see what words people actually use when talking to their friends.
Using data for more than seventy thousand active Facebook users,
they found something interesting about those who curse more in
status updates. They're more likely to be honest. That is,
they were more likely to use words that are associated
with honesty. But the researchers still weren't done. They also
(02:58):
isolated the US participants of the face book study and
average their profanity scores across the states. Next, they compared
those scores to the two thousand twelve state integrity investigation.
They found that the greater the use of profanity statewide,
the higher the integrity score of the state they're from.
So there you have it. Curse away and everyone will
find you more honest. Well, hold up, The researchers only
(03:19):
studied the perspective of the person swearing, not the perspective
of the person hearing the swearing. But there's a silver lining.
If you ever find yourself on the receiving end of
a profanity laden tirade, you know there's a good chance
that the person is telling you what they really think.
Next up, senior editor Katherine Whitburn and our freelancer Dave
(03:41):
Ruse bring us an answer to a question that crossed
our minds given recent news about an assault on one
espousal of racist ideology morality aside? Is it ever legal
to punch someone in the face? Face punching in movies
and TV shows is as cliche as the angry police
chief and the one handed cliff grab. But in real life,
(04:04):
hauling off and clocking someone is not only a great
way to break your hand, it's usually illegal. You would
be Clint Eastwood's out there maybe wandering. Is there ever
a situation in which you are legally justified to pop
someone in their ugly mug. Michael schwartz Back, a California
criminal defense lawyer who's also an editor at the legal
website Nolo, says the answer is yes, but the punch
(04:25):
has to be made in self defense. In general, schwartz
Bog says, you have to not be the aggressor, and
you have to reasonably believe that forces necessary to protect
yourself from some imminent violence. You also have to use
an appropriate level of force. So here are some points
to distinguish a legal punch from an illegal. One. Number one,
you can't strike first. That would make you the aggressor.
(04:48):
It's hard to argue self defense when you're literally on
the attack. Number Two, you can only punt someone if
they have already taken a swing at you, or if
you believe you're about to be hit. Number Three, you
can't escalate the fight. If the drunk guy at the
bar doesn't like the way you're looking at him and
shoves you on the shoulder, you can't break a bottle
over his head, or punch him or kick him in
(05:08):
the goodies. You also can't use physical force against verbal attacks.
Schwartzberg says that's the most common misconception about self defense.
The whole fighting words doctrine comes from a Supreme Court
case where a man was arrested for cursing out a cop.
The man said his behavior was free expression. The court
disagreed and said that certain insults quote, by their very utterance,
(05:31):
inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of
the peace end quote. Schwartzberg adds that even if someone
threatens you and says they're gonna beat you up or
even kill you, the law doesn't give you the right
to slug them. Whether you get prosecuted for punching someone
out depends a lot on the police and what else
may be going on in your city. Schwartzbog says, if
(05:52):
you're in a big metro area, there's a scuffle at
the bar, the prosecutors are flooded by other cases, and
no one seems to be really hurt, they may not
pursue the case. But even so, you could still be
sued in civil court. If the person you punched got
a serious injury, missed work, or suffered psychological trauma from
the incident, he can sue you for damages, and you
won't see that one in the movies. Finally, this week,
(06:21):
staff editor E's Jeff Coat and our freelance writer Shelley
Danzy explain how a team of researchers honed in on
the systems in the brain responsible for the disorder in
which people find annoying sounds beyond annoying ms phonia. It's
dinner time with family and everyone's eating and tunning sounds
harmless enough, right, But for some hearing other people's crunching,
(06:44):
lip smacking, or gulping can cause anger and anxiety. Ms
Aphonia is a disorder that often evokes strong negative feelings
to certain sounds, particular things like gum chewing, pen clicking,
keyboard typing, and rattling pocket chains. Recent research published and
current biologies study the brains of people with misophonia to
see how they process emotions from certain sounds. A team
(07:05):
of scientists out of the UK and US evaluated the
data of twenty participants with misophonia and twenty two without.
People who don't have mesophonia can generally tune out everyday
sounds that may be a bit bothersome, but for people
with msophonia, the sensitivity comes from the pattern of the sound,
not its volume. While it's not known exactly how many
people have the condition, it can be debilitating for those
(07:26):
who do have it. On average, missophonia symptoms start around
age twelve, but they can appear as early as age five.
Trigger sounds often insight rage, and sometimes the sensitivity gets
so intense that actions related to specific sounds become disturbing.
Imagine a person with msophonia living with a friend, but
she doesn't want to talk because she doesn't like the
sound of her friends breathing. Sometimes people with the disorders
(07:48):
struggle in silence. The researchers studied measurements from m R
and f m R I, as well as physiological data
observing parts of the brain used for processing perceptions and emotions.
Participant heard trigger sounds like eating, breathing, and drinking. They
also heard unpleasant sounds like a baby's cry in person's screen,
and they heard neutral sounds like a busy cafe and rain.
(08:11):
Then the participants rated how annoying, triggering, or anti social
the sounds were. While the misophonic group did experience distress
typical of their disorder from the trigger sounds, the unpleasant
sounds did not produce the same response. After hearing the
trigger sounds, the mesophonic group experienced increased heart rates and
galvanic or electric skin responses. According to the authors, these
(08:33):
responses are consistent with mesophonic tendencies to have a fight
or flight response to trigger sounds. The misophonics in the
study also exhibited abnormal salience detection, meaning the trigger sounds
stood out more for them, so parts of the brain
involved in determining salience were more active in mesophonics than
in non mesophonics. The trigger sounds targeted the mesophonics anterior
insular cortex of the brain, a network that directs our
(08:56):
attention towards stimuli that are meaningful to us, along with
their parts of the brain related to processing and regulating emotion.
Participants also responded to body consciousness questions about their inner
and outer perception. The researchers found that people with mesophonia
were more aware of internal bodily sensations than those without
the condition. The researchers data doesn't show whether this unusual
(09:17):
internal perception is a cause or result of misophonia, but
the researchers are optimistic that further research can be directed
to quiet the brain structures related to the condition. That's
our show for this week. Thank you so much for
tuning in. Further thanks to our audio producer Dylan Fagin
and our editorial liaison Alison louder Milk. Subscribe to now
(09:41):
Now for more of the latest science news and send
us links to anything you'd like to hear us covered,
plus a picture of a velvet painting that you really like.
I just sort of accidentally bought one that features of Conquistadore.
You can send us an email at now podcast at
how stuff Works dot com, and of course, for lots
more stories like these, head on over to our home
planet now dot has stuff works dot com. Mmmmm
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