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. 2014 Sep;15(9):934-44.
doi: 10.1016/j.jpain.2014.06.004. Epub 2014 Jun 19.

Partners' empathy increases pain ratings: effects of perceived empathy and attachment style on pain report and display

Sarah Hurter  1 , Yannis Paloyelis  2 , Amanda C de C Williams  1 , Aikaterini Fotopoulou  3
Affiliations

Partners' empathy increases pain ratings: effects of perceived empathy and attachment style on pain report and display

Sarah Hurter et al. J Pain. 2014 Sep.

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.

Keywords: Social support; attachment; empathy; partner; social presence.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
A schematic representation of the procedure during each cold pressor trial.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A) Predictive marginal means and SE for composite facial expression ratings by attachment group and perceived empathy condition. (B) Predictive marginal means and SE for pain report ratings by attachment group and perceived empathy condition. Note: due to the logarithmic transformation (κ=−11.73729), high scores denote low pain report ratings. * Significant following correction for multiple testing.
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