Social interaction and pain: An arctic expedition

Area of Science:

• Social psychology
• Network science
• Pain research

Background:

• Understanding complex human behavior requires examining social environments.
• Empirically challenging to link individual outcomes with social network positions.
• Physical pain is a fundamental human experience influenced by social factors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the interplay between social network position and pain experience in adolescents.
• To determine if pain influences social status, interaction preferences (homophily), or pain transmission (contagion).
• To explore gender differences in the social dynamics of pain.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a closed, real-world setting with high-resolution temporal data from a 3-week Arctic hiking expedition.
• Adolescent participants provided daily self-reported pain ratings and identified social interaction partners.
• Longitudinal network models were applied to analyze social network dynamics and pain reporting.

Main Results:

• Experiencing pain was associated with decreased popularity (increased social isolation), specifically in males.
• Males in pain tended to withdraw from social interactions with females.
• No evidence of pain homophily (preferring interaction with similar pain levels) or pain contagion (adopting similar pain levels) was found.

Conclusions:

• Social network position, particularly popularity, is linked to pain reporting in adolescent males.
• Pain perception and social withdrawal in males may be influenced by masculinity norms.
• The absence of pain homophily and contagion contrasts with some prior research, highlighting the complexity of social pain dynamics.