Is pain “all in your mind”? Examining the general public’s views of pain

Salomons, T. V., Harrison, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3674-9622, Hansen, N. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5074-1075, Stazicker, J., Sorensen, A. G., Thomas, P. and Borg, E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2725-9568 (2022) Is pain “all in your mind”? Examining the general public’s views of pain. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 13. pp. 683-698. ISSN 1878-5158 doi: 10.1007/s13164-021-00553-6

Abstract/Summary

By definition, pain is a sensory and emotional experience that is felt in a particular part of the body. The precise relationship between somatic events at the site where pain is experienced, and central processing giving rise to the mental experience of pain remains the subject of debate, but there is little disagreement in scholarly circles that both aspects of pain are critical to its experience. Recent experimental work, however, suggests a public view that is at odds with this conceptualisation. By demonstrating that the public does not necessarily endorse central tenets of the “mental” view of pain (subjectivity, privacy, and incorrigibility), experimental philosophers have argued that the public holds a more “body-centric” view than most clinicians and scholars. Such a discrepancy would have important implications for how the public interacts with pain science and clinical care. In response, we tested the hypothesis that the public is capable of a more “mind-centric” view of pain. Using a series of vignettes, we demonstrate that in situations which highlight mental aspects of pain the public can, and does, recognize pain as a mental phenomenon. We also demonstrate that the public view is subject to context effects, by showing that the public’s view is modified when situations emphasizing mental and somatic aspects of pain are presented together.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/97855
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics (CINN) Life Sciences > School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences > Department of Psychology Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Centre for Cognition Research (CCR) Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Humanities > Philosophy
Publisher	Springer
Download/View statistics	View download statistics for this item