Self-observation as a source of pain perception.

Abstract

The hypothesis was tested that an individual's perception of a stimulus as un-comfortable or painful is partially an inference from his own observation of his response to that stimulus. Ss were required to observe themselves cither escaping or enduring a series of electric shocks, all of the same physical in-tensity. As predicted, Ss rated the felt discomfort produced by the shocks to be greater in the "escape " condition than in the "no-escape " condition. Ap-propriate controls and auxiliary data helped to rule out alternative explanations of the obtained difference, and the record of Ss ' galvanic skin responses sug-gested that actual physiological arousal was not serving as the basis for the Ss ' discomfort ratings. An individual's perception of pain is only partially a function of the "pain producing" stimulus. This is apparent from the wide cul-tural differences in labeling stimuli as painful (e.g., childbirth; Melzack, 1961), from re-