Hurter, S;
Paloyelis, Y;
Williams, ACDC;
Fotopoulou, A;
(2014)
Partners' Empathy Increases Pain Ratings: Effects of Perceived Empathy and Attachment Style on Pain Report and Display.
The Journal of Pain
, 15
(9)
pp. 934-944.
10.1016/j.jpain.2014.06.004.
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Abstract
Pain can be influenced by its social context. We aimed to examine under controlled experimental conditions how empathy from a partner and personal attachment style affect pain report, tolerance, and facial expressions of pain. Fifty-four participants, divided into secure, anxious, and avoidant attachment style groups, underwent a cold pressor task with their partners present. We manipulated how much empathy the participants perceived that their partners had for them. We observed a significant main effect of perceived empathy on pain report, with greater pain reported in the high perceived empathy condition. No such effects were found for pain tolerance or facial display. We also found a significant interaction of empathy with attachment style group, with the avoidant group reporting and displaying less pain than the secure and the anxious groups in the high perceived empathy condition. No such findings were observed in the low empathy condition. These results suggest that empathy from one's partner may influence pain report beyond behavioral reactions. In addition, the amount of pain report and expression that people show in high empathy conditions depends on their attachment style. Perspective: Believing that one's partner feels high empathy for one's pain may lead individuals to rate the intensity of pain as higher. Individual differences in attachment style moderate this empathy effect.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Partners' Empathy Increases Pain Ratings: Effects of Perceived Empathy and Attachment Style on Pain Report and Display |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.jpain.2014.06.004 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpain.2014.06.004 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Clinical Neurology, Neurosciences, Neurosciences & Neurology, Social support, social presence, empathy, partner, attachment, CATASTROPHIZING SCALE, FACIAL EXPRESSION, AFFECTIONAL BONDS, ADULT ATTACHMENT, SOCIAL SUPPORT, OLDER-ADULTS, EMOTIONS, PERSPECTIVES, NEUROSCIENCE, EXPERIENCES |
| 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/10120304 |
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