Vicarious instigation and conditioning of facial expressive and autonomic responses to a model's expressive display of pain.

Negative Emotional Responses Elicited by the Anticipation of Pain in Others: Psychophysiological Evidence

“…The mean level of average and worst pain reported by the observed participants was The present findings corroborate previous findings on vicarious fear conditioning in humans 15,16,17,42,60,72,78 and suggest that seeing others in pain has a profound influence on observers 40 . Specifically, findings indicate that other's pain can serve as a sign of threat, resulting into fearful responses towards previously neutral stimuli.…”

“…The present study extends previous research by investigating observers' reactions in a more salient interpersonal context. Specifically, instead of using pictures, videotaped models/confederates or avatars 13,15,16,72,78,81 , observers watched a real-life participant undergoing painful stimulation.…”

“…Furthermore, it provides us with information about when others will likely experience pain and suffer. It is no surprise that studies on vicarious conditioning reveal that signals of pain in others elicit fear and anxiety in observers 40,42,60,78 . Several issues however deserve further scrutiny.…”

Helping and Altruism

“…Adults and children not only report feeling empathy, but they also become physiologically aroused by the pain and suffering of others. Moreover, observers may not just feel bad about the pain or distress of another person, but they may also begin to experience what the other person is feeling (Vaughan & Lanzetta, 1980). Preschool children also spontaneously show signs of facial concern and physiological arousal at the distress of others (Fabes et al, 1993), and there is evidence that even one-and two-day-old infants will respond with crying to the distress of another infant (Sagi & Hoffman, 1976).…”

Impact of parental catastrophizing and contextual threat on parents’ emotional and behavioral responses to their child’s pain

“…The fearpotentiated startle reflex [23,40,43,51,52] and EMG activity over the corrugator muscle [25,26] served as psychophysiological indices of parental distress while anticipating pain in their child. Both indices have been shown to reflect an aversive emotional response to negative events, such as pain, happening to the self as well as to others [8,9,25,26,41,43,53,65,73]. Subsequently, parental behavioral response to their child's pain was assessed during the parent-child interaction period.…”