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.
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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 |
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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 |
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