Beyond Conformity: Social Influences on Pain Reports and Physiology

Overview

Journal Emotion

Publisher American Psychological Association

Specialty Psychology

Date 2015 Sep 1

PMID 26322566

Citations 35

Authors

Leonie Koban

Tor D Wager

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Social information can profoundly influence behavior, but its effects are often explained in terms of "conformity," implying effects on decision-making and communication rather than deeper sensory modulation. We examined whether information about other people's pain reports affected both participants' pain experience and skin conductance responses (SCR) during pain. Sixty volunteers experienced painful heat stimulation preceded by 2 kinds of informational cues: (a) nonreinforced social information indicating low or high pain ratings from previous participants; and (b) reinforced conditioned stimuli (CSlow, CShigh). Both high-pain social information and CShigh cues enhanced pain and SCRs relative to their respective controls, with particularly robust effects of social information. Effects of both manipulations on both pain and SCRs were mediated by trial-by-trial pain expectancies. These results demonstrate strong social influences on pain and autonomic responses, and suggest that expectations from multiple sources can influence pain physiology independent of reinforcement.

Citing Articles

Spatiotemporal integration of contextual and sensory information within the cortical hierarchy in human pain experience.

Gim S, Hong S, Reynolds Losin E, Woo C PLoS Biol. 2024; 22(11):e3002910.

PMID: 39536050 PMC: 11602096. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002910.

Expectation generation and its effect on subsequent pain and visual perception.

Botvinik-Nezer R, Geuter S, Lindquist M, Wager T bioRxiv. 2024; .

PMID: 39416149 PMC: 11482957. DOI: 10.1101/2024.10.10.617570.

Interpersonal physiological and psychological synchrony predict the social transmission of nocebo hyperalgesia between individuals.

Mostafa R, McNair N, Tan W, Saunders C, Colagiuri B, Barnes K Commun Psychol. 2024; 2(1):33.

PMID: 39242740 PMC: 11332037. DOI: 10.1038/s44271-024-00069-6.

Neuropsychological mechanisms of observational learning in human placebo effects.

Raghuraman N, White J, Watson L, Bellei-Rodriguez C, Shafir R, Wang Y Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2024; .

PMID: 38743108 PMC: 11561162. DOI: 10.1007/s00213-024-06608-7.

Updating beliefs about pain following advice: Trustworthiness of social advice predicts pain expectations and experience.

Krahe C, Koukoutsakis A, Fotopoulou A Cognition. 2024; 246:105756.

PMID: 38442585 PMC: 7616089. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105756.

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