We find a positive effect of political preferences heterogamy on union dissolution; in addition, diverging opinions on the Brexit referendum is associated to higher chances of partnership break-up

Arpino, Bruno, and Alessandro Di Nallo. 2022. “Sleeping with the Enemy. Partners’ Political Attitudes and Risk of Separation.” SocArXiv. September 9. doi:10.31235/osf.io/w8etr

Abstract: Does politics conflict with love? We aim at answering this question by examining the effect on union dissolution of partners’ (mis)match on political preferences, defined as self-reported closeness, intention to vote, or vote for a specific party. Previous studies argued that partners’ heterogamy may increase risk of union dissolution because of differences among partners in lifestyles, attitudes, and beliefs, and/or because of disapproval from family and community members. We posit that similar arguments can apply to political heterogamy and test the effect of this new heterogamy dimension using UK data from the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) and the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS). The data offer a unique opportunity to disentangle the role of heterogamy by political preferences from the effects of heterogamies in other domains (e.g., ethnicity and religiosity) and from that of other partners’ characteristics, while also covering a long period of time (from 1991 to 2021). The data also allow to implement a more specific analysis about the referendum on UK’s permanence in the European Union (known as the Brexit referendum). We find a positive effect of political preferences heterogamy on union dissolution. In addition, diverging opinions on the Brexit referendum is associated to higher chances of partnership break-up.

The Effect of Taboo Language and Gesture on the Experience of Pain; against common opinion, it seems these effects are likely not due to changes in state aggression

F@#k Pain! The Effect of Taboo Language and Gesture on the Experience of Pain. Autumn B. Hostetter, Dominic Knight Rascon-Powell. Psychological Reports, September 8, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/00332941221125776

Abstract: Swearing has been shown to reduce the experience of pain in a cold pressor task, and the effect has been suggested to be due to state aggression. In the present experiment, we examined whether producing a taboo gesture (i.e., the American gesture of raising the middle finger) reduces the experience of pain similar to the effect that has been shown for producing a taboo word. 111 participants completed two cold pressor trials in a 2 (Language vs. Gesture) × 2 (Taboo vs. Neutral) mixed design. We found that producing a taboo act in either language or gesture increased pain tolerance on the cold pressor task and reduced the experience of perceived pain compared to producing a neutral act. We found no changes in state aggression or heart rate. These results suggest that the pain-reducing effect of swearing is shared by taboo gesture and that these effects are likely not due to changes in state aggression.

Keywords: pain, profanity, swearing, gesture, hypoalgesic