Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, University of Virginia
Darden School of Business, University of Virginia.
Psychol Sci. 2016 Apr;27(4):443-54. doi: 10.1177/0956797615625640. Epub 2016 Feb 18.
The past decade has seen a rise in both economic insecurity and frequency of physical pain. The current research reveals a causal connection between these two growing and consequential social trends. In five studies, we found that economic insecurity produced physical pain and reduced pain tolerance. In a sixth study, with data from 33,720 geographically diverse households across the United States, economic insecurity predicted consumption of over-the-counter painkillers. The link between economic insecurity and physical pain emerged when people experienced the insecurity personally (unemployment), when they were in an insecure context (they were informed that their state had a relatively high level of unemployment), and when they contemplated past and future economic insecurity. Using both experimental-causal-chain and measurement-of-mediation approaches, we also established that the psychological experience of lacking control helped generate the causal link from economic insecurity to physical pain. Meta-analyses including all of our studies testing the link from economic insecurity to physical pain revealed that this link is reliable. Overall, the findings show that it physically hurts to be economically insecure.
在过去的十年中，经济不安全感和身体疼痛的频率都有所上升。当前的研究揭示了这两种日益增长且具有后果的社会趋势之间存在因果关系。在五项研究中，我们发现经济不安全感会导致身体疼痛，并降低疼痛容忍度。在第六项研究中，我们使用了来自美国各地 33720 个地理位置不同的家庭的数据，发现经济不安全感预示着人们会消费非处方止痛药。当人们亲身经历不安全感（失业）、处于不安全的环境中（被告知他们所在的州失业率相对较高），或者思考过去和未来的经济不安全感时，经济不安全感和身体疼痛之间的联系就会出现。我们还使用实验因果链和中介测量的方法，证明了缺乏控制的心理体验有助于产生从经济不安全感到身体疼痛的因果关系。包括所有测试经济不安全感与身体疼痛之间联系的研究在内的元分析表明，这种联系是可靠的。总的来说，这些发现表明经济上的不安全感会让人感到身体上的疼痛。
