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The roles of ethnicity, sex, and parental pain modeling in rating of experienced and imagined pain events

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Abstract

To investigate the association of ethnicity, sex, and parental pain modeling on the evaluation of experienced and imagined painful events, 173 healthy volunteers (96 women) completed the Prior Pain Experience Questionnaire, a 79-question assessment of the intensity of painful events, and a questionnaire regarding exposure to parental pain models. Consistent with existing literature, greater ratings of experienced pain were noted among Black versus White participants. Parental pain modeling was associated with higher imagined pain ratings, but only when the parent matched the participant’s sex. This effect was greater among White and Asian participants than Black or Hispanic participants, implying ethno-cultural effects may moderate the influence of pain modeling on the evaluation of imagined pain events. The clinical implications of these findings, as well as the predictive ability of imagined pain ratings for determining future experiences of pain, should be investigated in future studies.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the participants of the study for their willingness to participate, and thank Dr. Meryl Alappattu for her helpful comments on the manuscript. This research was supported by the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of Florida. Dr. Boissoneault is supported by NINDS training Grant T32NS045551 to the University of Florida Pain Research and Intervention Center of Excellence.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and animal rights and Informed Consent

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pain Research and Intervention Center of Excellence, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Jeff Boissoneault & Michael Robinson

  2. Center for Pain Research and Behavioral Health, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Jeff Boissoneault & Michael Robinson

  3. Department of Anesthesiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Jennifer R. Bunch & Michael Robinson

  4. Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, PO Box 100165, Gainesville, FL, 32610, USA

    Michael Robinson

Authors
  1. Jeff Boissoneault
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  2. Jennifer R. Bunch
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  3. Michael Robinson
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Correspondence to Michael Robinson.

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Boissoneault, J., Bunch, J.R. & Robinson, M. The roles of ethnicity, sex, and parental pain modeling in rating of experienced and imagined pain events. J Behav Med 38, 809–816 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-015-9650-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-015-9650-5

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