Abstract
Psychosocial stress affects resources for adequate coping with environmental demands. A crucial question in this context is the extent to which acute psychosocial stressors impact empathy and emotion regulation. In the present study, 120 participants were randomly assigned to a control group vs. a group confronted with the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), an established paradigm for the induction of acute psychosocial stress. Empathy for pain as a specific subgroup of empathy was assessed via pain intensity ratings during a pain-picture task. Self-reported emotion regulation skills were measured as predictors using an established questionnaire. Stressed individuals scored significantly lower on the appraisal of pain pictures. A regression model was chosen to find variables that further predict the pain ratings. These findings implicate that acute psychosocial stress might impair empathic processes to observed pain in another person and the ability to accept one's emotion additionally predicts the empathic reaction. Furthermore, the ability to tolerate negative emotions modulated the relation between stress and pain judgments, and thus influenced core cognitive-affective functions relevant for coping with environmental challenges. In conclusion, our study emphasizes the necessity of reducing negative emotions in terms of empathic distress when confronted with pain of another person under psychosocial stress, in order to be able to retain pro-social behavior.
Highlights
Pain comprises manifold sensory, affective, and cognitive experiences that often mirror personal life events and depend on individual differences
Reaction times increased from non-pain pictures, over pain pictures with intensity 1 and 2 to intensity 3 [Main Effect Intensities F(3, 303) = 71.285, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.414, Interaction Intensities × Group F(3, 303) = 0.374, p = 0.77, η2 = 0.004]
In comparison to the Placebo-Group, the Stress-Group reported a significant reduction in mood from preTSST to postTSST [Interaction Time × Group: F(1, 100) = 43.916, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.305] and from preTSST to postPain [Interaction Time × Group: F(1, 100) = 11.345, p = 0.001, η2 = 0.102] as well as in calmness from preTSST to postTSST [Interaction Time × Group: F(1, 102) = 29.854, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.230] while calmness increased again from postTSST to postPain [Interaction Time × Group: F(1, 100) = 5.231, p < 0.024, η2 = 0.050] as measured by MDBF scales
Summary
Affective, and cognitive experiences that often mirror personal life events and depend on individual differences. The social communications model of pain (Hadjistavropoulos and Craig, 2002) points to the importance of attending to both the sender of information and the receiver, thereby emphasizing the importance of individual differences on both the person suffering from pain and the person observing it. This model focuses on the communication of pain, it recognizes that emotion often is intermixed with the pain that is communicated. The concept of pain, and the construct of empathy are overlapping, because to feel with another person in pain might constitute a prerequisite for initiating helping behavior
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