UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Attachment style moderates partner presence effects on pain: a laser-evoked potentials study

Krahe, C; Paloyelis, Y; Condon, H; Jenkinson, PM; Williams, SCR; Fotopoulou, A; (2015) Attachment style moderates partner presence effects on pain: a laser-evoked potentials study. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience , 10 (8) pp. 1030-1037. 10.1093/scan/nsu156. Green open access

[thumbnail of Attachment style moderates partner presence effects on pain a laser-evoked potentials study.pdf]
Preview
Text
Attachment style moderates partner presence effects on pain a laser-evoked potentials study.pdf - Published Version

Download (268kB) | Preview

Abstract

Social support is crucial for psychological and physical well-being. Yet, in experimental and clinical pain research, the presence of others has been found to both attenuate and intensify pain. To investigate the factors underlying these mixed effects, we administered noxious laser stimuli to 39 healthy women while their romantic partner was present or absent, and measured pain ratings and laser-evoked potentials (LEPs) to assess the effects of partner presence on subjective pain experience and underlying neural processes. Further, we examined whether individual differences in adult attachment style (AAS), alone or in interaction with the partner’s level of attentional focus (manipulated to be either on or away from the participant) might modulate these effects. We found that the effects of partner presence vs absence on pain-related measures depended on AAS but not partner attentional focus. The higher participants’ attachment avoidance, the higher pain ratings and N2 and P2 local peak amplitudes were in the presence compared with the absence of the romantic partner. As LEPs are thought to reflect activity relating to the salience of events, our data suggest that partner presence may influence the perceived salience of events threatening the body, particularly in individuals who tend to mistrust others.

Type: Article
Title: Attachment style moderates partner presence effects on pain: a laser-evoked potentials study
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsu156
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsu156
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © The Author(s) (2015). Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.
Keywords: social presence, social support, pain, attachment style, laser-evoked potentials
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Clinical, Edu and Hlth Psychology
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10120301
Downloads since deposit
40Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item