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Subliminal perception of others' physical pain induces personal distress rather than empathic concern.
Song, Juan; Zhao, Zijing; Jiao, Zhibin; Peng, Yao; Chu, Mingyuan.
Affiliation
  • Song J; Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China.
  • Zhao Z; Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China.
  • Jiao Z; Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, China.
  • Peng Y; Dongguan Nancheng Middle School, Dongguan, China.
  • Chu M; School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK. mingyuan.chu@abdn.ac.uk.
BMC Psychol ; 11(1): 276, 2023 Sep 15.
Article in En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-37715275
BACKGROUND: What is our immediate reaction when we witness someone experiencing pain? The empathy-altruism hypothesis predicts that observers would display empathy and a tendency to approach the person in pain. Alternatively, the threat value of pain hypothesis (TVPH) argues that others' pain serves as a signal of threat and should induce observers' avoidance response. METHODS: To examine these two hypotheses, three experiments were conducted. The experiments aimed to investigate the impact of subliminal exposure to others' physical pain on participants' emotional and behavioural responses. RESULTS: The results revealed that subliminal pain priming resulted in faster response and attentional bias to fearful faces compared to sad faces (Experiment 1), faster reaction times in recognizing fear-related words compared to anger-related words during a lexical decision task (Experiment 2), and faster avoidance responses towards anger-related words, as opposed to approaching responses towards positive words (Experiment 3). CONCLUSIONS: The consistent findings across all experiments revealed that subliminal perception of pain scenes elicited fear emotion and immediate avoidance responses. Therefore, the outcomes of our study provide supportive evidence for the TVPH.
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Full text: 1 Collection: 01-internacional Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Subliminal Stimulation / Empathy Type of study: Prognostic_studies Limits: Humans Language: En Journal: BMC Psychol Year: 2023 Document type: Article Affiliation country: China Country of publication: United kingdom

Full text: 1 Collection: 01-internacional Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Subliminal Stimulation / Empathy Type of study: Prognostic_studies Limits: Humans Language: En Journal: BMC Psychol Year: 2023 Document type: Article Affiliation country: China Country of publication: United kingdom