Goldstein Pavel, Shamay-Tsoory Simone G, Yellinek Shahar, Weissman-Fogel Irit
Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel; Department of Statistics, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
J Pain. 2016 Oct;17(10):1049-1057. doi: 10.1016/j.jpain.2016.06.007. Epub 2016 Jun 27.
Previous studies have provided evidence for pain-alleviating effects of segmental tactile stimulation, yet the effect of social touch and its underlying mechanism is still unexplored. Considering that the soma affects the way we think, feel, and interact with others, it has been proposed that touch may communicate emotions, including empathy, interacting with the identity of the toucher. Thus, the goal of the current study was to examine the analgesic effects of social touch, and to test the moderating role of the toucher's empathy in analgesia using an ecological paradigm. Tonic heat stimuli were administered to women. Concurrently, their partners either watched or touched their hands, a stranger touched their hands, or no one interacted with them. The results revealed diminished levels of pain during partners' touch compared with all other control conditions. Furthermore, taking into account the dyadic interaction, only during the touch condition we found 1) a significant relationship between the partners' pain ratings, and 2) a significant negative relationship between the male touchers' empathy and the pain experience of their female partners. The findings highlight the powerful analgesic effect of social touch and suggest that empathy between romantic partners may explain the pain-alleviating effects of social touch.
Pain research mostly concentrates on different factors around a single pain target, without taking into account various social interactions with the observers. Our findings support the idea that pain perception models should be extended, taking into account some psychological characteristics of observers. Our conclusions are on the basis of advanced statistical methods.
以往研究已为节段性触觉刺激的止痛效果提供了证据，但社交触摸的效果及其潜在机制仍未得到探索。鉴于躯体影响我们思考、感受以及与他人互动的方式，有人提出触摸可能传达包括同理心在内的情感，这与触摸者的身份有关。因此，本研究的目的是检验社交触摸的镇痛效果，并使用生态学范式测试触摸者同理心在镇痛中的调节作用。对女性施加持续性热刺激。同时，她们的伴侣要么观看要么触摸她们的手，要么由陌生人触摸她们的手，要么无人与她们互动。结果显示，与所有其他对照条件相比，伴侣触摸期间疼痛程度降低。此外，考虑到二元互动，仅在触摸条件下我们发现：1）伴侣的疼痛评分之间存在显著关系，以及2）男性触摸者的同理心与他们女性伴侣的疼痛体验之间存在显著负相关。这些发现突出了社交触摸强大的镇痛效果，并表明浪漫伴侣之间的同理心可能解释社交触摸的止痛效果。
疼痛研究大多集中在单个疼痛目标周围的不同因素上，而没有考虑与观察者的各种社会互动。我们的研究结果支持这样一种观点，即疼痛感知模型应加以扩展，同时考虑观察者的一些心理特征。我们的结论基于先进的统计方法。
