Exposure to Threatening Environments, Threat-Related Attention Bias, and Pain

Abstract

The study here was designed to examine the relationship between lifetime exposure to threatening environments, related attention biases, and sensitivity to pain. There is little understanding of the mechanisms that lead certain people to experience greater pain than others in response to a given stimulus. There is evidence that there are disparities in pain sensitivity among various sociodemographic groups (e.g., sex, race), and that attentional vigilance towards pain can enhance pain sensitivity. Participants included healthy volunteers. We hypothesized that people with greater lifetime exposure to threatening environments would demonstrate greater attentional biases to threat in the lab, report greater pain vigilance, and be more sensitive to physical pain stimuli. The findings did not support our original hypotheses; interpretations and suggestions for future work are discussed.