Mildly negative social encounters reduce physical pain sensitivity.
While previous research has demonstrated a reduction in physical pain sensitivity in response to social exclusion, the manipulations employed have arguably been far removed from typical daily experience. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of relatively ordinary social encounters on the perception of pain. Healthy participants rated the intensity and unpleasantness of painful stimuli before and after engaging in a structured interaction with a confederate who was instructed to either be warm and friendly or indifferent. A control group was asked to perform a similar structured activity, but alone. Consistent with predictions, participants who experienced the mildly negative social exchange reported lower pain intensity and unpleasantness after the encounter relative to baseline, whereas those exposed to the positive social exchange did not evidence any change in pain ratings. These results were not mediated by changes in mood or perceived connectedness. If mildly negative social encounters can provoke an analgesic effect, it is possible that social hypoalgesia may be considerably more commonplace than previously realized. Discussion focuses on the role of stress-induced hypoalgesia, and the implications of the results for clinical assessments of pain.
Borsook
Terry K
TK
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, 4th Floor, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G3.
MacDonald
Geoff
G
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010146:Pain / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D010147:Pain Measurement; D017288:Pain Threshold / Q000502:physiology*; D010808:Physical Examination; D011897:Random Allocation; D012059:Rejection, Psychology; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult
Angrilli A, Mauri A, Palomba D, Flor H, Birbaumer N, Sartori G, di Paola F. Startle reflex and emotion modulation impairment after a right amygdala lesion. Brain. 1996;119:1991-2000.
Apkarian AV, Bushnell MC, Treede RD, Zubieta JK. Human brain mechanisms of pain perception and regulation in health and disease. Eur J Pain. 2005;9:463-484.
Ballantyne JC, Mao J. Opioid therapy for chronic pain. N Engl J Med. 2003;349:1943.
Bingel U, Schoell E, Herken W, Büchel C, May A. Habituation to painful stimulation involves the antinociceptive system. Pain. 2007;131:21-30.
Blackhart GC, Eckel LA, Tice DM. Salivary cortisol in response to acute social rejection and acceptance by peers. Biol Psychol. 2007;75:267-276.
Brown JL, Sheffield D, Leary MR, Robinson ME. Social support and experimental pain. Psychosom Med. 2003;65:276-283.
Butler RK, Finn DP. Stress-induced analgesia. Prog Neurobiol. 2009;88:184-202.
Cano A, Gillis M, Heinz W, Geisser M, Foran H. Marital functioning, chronic pain, and psychological distress. Pain. 2004;107:99-106.
Chesher GB, Chan B. Footshock induced analgesia in mice: its reversal by naloxone and cross tolerance with morphine. Life Sci. 1977;21:1569-1574.
Chesterton LS, Sim J, Wright CC, Foster NE. Interrater reliability of algometry in measuring pressure pain thresholds in healthy humans, using multiple raters. Clin J Pain. 2007;23:760-766.
Chow RM, Tiedens LZ, Govan CL. Excluded emotions: the role of anger in antisocial responses to ostracism. J Exp Soc Psychol. 2008;44:896-903.
Coutinho SV, Plotsky PM, Sablad M, Miller JC, Zhou H, Bayati AI, McRoberts JA, Mayer EA. Neonatal maternal separation alters stress-induced responses to viscerosomatic nociceptive stimuli in rat. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol. 2002;282:G307-G316.
Davis M. Pharmacological and anatomical analysis of fear conditioning using the fear-potentiated startle paradigm. Behav Neurosci. 1986;100:814-824.
DeWall CN, Baumeister RF. Alone but feeling no pain: effects of social exclusion on physical pain tolerance and pain threshold, affective forecasting, and interpersonal empathy. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2006;91:1-15.
Dickerson SS, Gruenewald TL, Kemeny ME. When the social self is threatened: shame, physiology, and health. J Pers. 2004;72:1191-1216.
Downey G, Mougios V, Ayduk O, London BE, Shoda Y. Rejection sensitivity and the defensive motivational system: insights from the startle response to rejection cues. Psychol Sci. 2004;15:668-673.
Eisenberger NI, Jarcho JM, Lieberman MD, Naliboff BD. An experimental study of shared sensitivity to physical pain and social rejection. Pain. 2006;126:132-138.
Eisenberger NI, Lieberman MD, Williams KD. Does rejection hurt? An FMRI study of social exclusion. Science. 2003;302:290-292.
Gutiérrez AC, Keller EA. Analgesic response to stress is reduced in perinatally undernourished rats. J Nutr. 1997;127:765-769.
Hamm AO, Greenwald MK, Bradley MM, Lang PJ. Emotional learning, hedonic change, and the startle probe. J Abnorm Psychol. 1993;102:453-465.
Kavaliers M, Colwell DD, Perrot-Sinal TS. Opioid and non-opioid NMDA-mediated predator-induced analgesia in mice and the effects of parasitic infection. Brain Res. 1997;766:11-18.
Kavaliers M. Evolutionary and comparative aspects of nociception. Brain Res Bull. 1988;21:923-931.
Lang PJ, Bradley MM, Cuthbert BN. Emotion, attention, and the startle reflex. Psychol Rev. 1990;97:377-395.
Lang PJ, Bradley MM, Cuthbert BN. A motivational analysis of emotion: reflex–cortex connections. Psychol Sci. 1992;3:44.
Macdonald G, Leary MR. Why does social exclusion hurt? The relationship between social and physical pain. Psychol Bull. 2005;131:202-223.
McEwen BS. Allostasis and allostatic load: implications for neuropsychopharmacology. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2000;22:108-124.
McEwen BS. The neurobiology of stress: from serendipity to clinical relevance. Brain Res. 2000;886:172-189.
Mitchinson AR, Kim HM, Geisser M, Rosenberg JM, Hinshaw DB. Social connectedness and patient recovery after major operations. J Am Coll Surg. 2008;206:292-300.
Morris SB, DeShon RP. Combining effect size estimates in meta-analysis with repeated measures and independent-groups designs. Psychol Methods. 2002;7:105-125.
Panksepp J, Herman B, Conner R, Bishop P, Scott JP. The biology of social attachments: opiates alleviate separation distress. Biol Psychiatry. 1978;13:607-618.
Puglisi-Allegra S, Oliverio A. Social isolation: effects on pain threshold and stress-induced analgesia. Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 1983;19:679-681.
Reblin M, Uchino BN. Social and emotional support and its implication for health. Curr Opin Psychiatry. 2008;21:201-205.
Rhudy JL, Meagher MW. Fear and anxiety: divergent effects on human pain thresholds. Pain. 2000;84:65-75.
Rodgers RJ, Hendrie CA. Social conflict activates status-dependent endogenous analgesic or hyperalgesic mechanisms in male mice: effects of naloxone on nociception and behaviour. Physiol Behav. 1983;30:775-780.
Sedikides C, Campbell WK, Reeder GD, Elliot AJ. The relationship closeness induction task. Represent R Soc Psyc. 1999;23:1-4.
Seeman TE. Social ties and health: the benefits of social integration. Ann Epidemiol. 1996;6:442-451.
Stroud LR, Salovey P, Epel ES. Sex differences in stress responses: social rejection versus achievement stress. Biol Psychiatry. 2002;52:318-327.
Uchino BN. Social support and health: a review of physiological processes potentially underlying links to disease outcomes. J Behav Med. 2006;29:377-387.
Vrana SR, Spence EL, Lang PJ. The startle probe response: a new measure of emotion? J Abnorm Psychol. 1988;97:487-491.
Watson D, Clark LA, Tellegen A. Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1988;54:1063-1070.
Wideman CH, Murphy HM, McCartney SB. Interactions between vasopressin and food restriction on stress-induced analgesia. Peptides. 1996;17:63-66.