Investigating mortality salience as a potential causal influence and moderator of responses to laboratory pain
Background Because pain can have profound ramifications for quality of life and daily functioning, understanding nuances in the interplay of psychosocial experiences with pain perception is vital for effective pain management. In separate lines of research, pain resilience and mortality salience hav...
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
PeerJ Inc.
2024-04-01
|
| Series: | PeerJ |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://peerj.com/articles/17204.pdf |
| _version_ | 1797221113855475712 |
|---|---|
| author | Beibei You Hongwei Wen Todd Jackson |
| author_facet | Beibei You Hongwei Wen Todd Jackson |
| author_sort | Beibei You |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Background Because pain can have profound ramifications for quality of life and daily functioning, understanding nuances in the interplay of psychosocial experiences with pain perception is vital for effective pain management. In separate lines of research, pain resilience and mortality salience have emerged as potentially important psychological correlates of reduced pain severity and increased tolerance of pain. However, to date, there has been a paucity of research examining potentially interactive effects of these factors on pain perception. To address this gap, the present experiment investigated mortality salience as a causal influence on tolerance of laboratory pain and a moderator of associations between pain resilience and pain tolerance within a Chinese sample. Methods Participants were healthy young Chinese adults (86 women, 84 men) who first completed a brief initial cold pressor test (CPT) followed by measures of demographics and pain resilience. Subsequently, participants randomly assigned to a mortality salience (MS) condition completed two open-ended essay questions in which they wrote about their death as well as a death anxiety scale while those randomly assigned to a control condition completed analogous tasks about watching television. Finally, all participants engaged in a delay task and a second CPT designed to measure post-manipulation pain tolerance and subjective pain intensity levels. Results MS condition cohorts showed greater pain tolerance than controls on the post-manipulation CPT, though pain intensity levels did not differ between groups. Moderator analyses indicated that the relationship between the behavior perseverance facet of pain resilience and pain tolerance was significantly stronger among MS condition participants than controls. Conclusions This experiment is the first to document potential causal effects of MS on pain tolerance and Ms as a moderator of the association between self-reported behavior perseverance and behavioral pain tolerance. Findings provide foundations for extensions within clinical pain samples. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-24T13:00:17Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-ef9d57b8fe01410e91adc8f2be6cd84d |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2167-8359 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-24T13:00:17Z |
| publishDate | 2024-04-01 |
| publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PeerJ |
| spelling | doaj.art-ef9d57b8fe01410e91adc8f2be6cd84d2024-04-05T15:05:08ZengPeerJ Inc.PeerJ2167-83592024-04-0112e1720410.7717/peerj.17204Investigating mortality salience as a potential causal influence and moderator of responses to laboratory painBeibei You0Hongwei Wen1Todd Jackson2School of Nursing, Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, ChinaFaculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, ChinaDepartment of Psychology, University of Macau, Taipa, ChinaBackground Because pain can have profound ramifications for quality of life and daily functioning, understanding nuances in the interplay of psychosocial experiences with pain perception is vital for effective pain management. In separate lines of research, pain resilience and mortality salience have emerged as potentially important psychological correlates of reduced pain severity and increased tolerance of pain. However, to date, there has been a paucity of research examining potentially interactive effects of these factors on pain perception. To address this gap, the present experiment investigated mortality salience as a causal influence on tolerance of laboratory pain and a moderator of associations between pain resilience and pain tolerance within a Chinese sample. Methods Participants were healthy young Chinese adults (86 women, 84 men) who first completed a brief initial cold pressor test (CPT) followed by measures of demographics and pain resilience. Subsequently, participants randomly assigned to a mortality salience (MS) condition completed two open-ended essay questions in which they wrote about their death as well as a death anxiety scale while those randomly assigned to a control condition completed analogous tasks about watching television. Finally, all participants engaged in a delay task and a second CPT designed to measure post-manipulation pain tolerance and subjective pain intensity levels. Results MS condition cohorts showed greater pain tolerance than controls on the post-manipulation CPT, though pain intensity levels did not differ between groups. Moderator analyses indicated that the relationship between the behavior perseverance facet of pain resilience and pain tolerance was significantly stronger among MS condition participants than controls. Conclusions This experiment is the first to document potential causal effects of MS on pain tolerance and Ms as a moderator of the association between self-reported behavior perseverance and behavioral pain tolerance. Findings provide foundations for extensions within clinical pain samples.https://peerj.com/articles/17204.pdfMortality salienceModeration effectsPain resiliencePain tolerance |
| spellingShingle | Beibei You Hongwei Wen Todd Jackson Investigating mortality salience as a potential causal influence and moderator of responses to laboratory pain PeerJ Mortality salience Moderation effects Pain resilience Pain tolerance |
| title | Investigating mortality salience as a potential causal influence and moderator of responses to laboratory pain |
| title_full | Investigating mortality salience as a potential causal influence and moderator of responses to laboratory pain |
| title_fullStr | Investigating mortality salience as a potential causal influence and moderator of responses to laboratory pain |
| title_full_unstemmed | Investigating mortality salience as a potential causal influence and moderator of responses to laboratory pain |
| title_short | Investigating mortality salience as a potential causal influence and moderator of responses to laboratory pain |
| title_sort | investigating mortality salience as a potential causal influence and moderator of responses to laboratory pain |
| topic | Mortality salience Moderation effects Pain resilience Pain tolerance |
| url | https://peerj.com/articles/17204.pdf |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT beibeiyou investigatingmortalitysalienceasapotentialcausalinfluenceandmoderatorofresponsestolaboratorypain AT hongweiwen investigatingmortalitysalienceasapotentialcausalinfluenceandmoderatorofresponsestolaboratorypain AT toddjackson investigatingmortalitysalienceasapotentialcausalinfluenceandmoderatorofresponsestolaboratorypain |