Women are more tolerant of pain when inflicted by a man than by a woman. This challenges many stereotypes.
- Women tend to downplay pain when it’s caused by a man, but say they suffer more when it’s caused by a woman
- The expression of pain in men and women involves complex socio-psychological mechanisms
Women do not react in the same way to pain according to the sex of the person who inflicts them, according to a new study published in the scientific journal National Library of Medicine. “The expression of pain in men and women involves complex socio-psychological mechanisms.” write the authors of the study in the preamble.
Minimization of pain
To assess their feelings about painful physical actions, participants were assigned to one of four experimental conditions: men tested by men, men tested by women, women tested by men, and women tested. by women.
Results: Women reported lower pain thresholds than men, regardless of the gender of those hurting them (via heat, pressure, pricks, and electrical stimulation to the forearm). Another lesson: women tend to minimize pain when it is exerted by a man, but not when it is a woman.
The end of stereotypes
“These results indicate that the gender of the hurter and the pain score of the victim influence reports of pain, especially among women,” conclude the scientists. “This may help improve treatments for patients with chronic pain,” they add.
Furthermore, stereotypes that assume that “men may signal weaker pain to a woman to appear strong, while women may signal stronger pain to a man to appear weak and seek protection”, were not confirmed by the study. On the contrary, by minimizing their pain, the women in the trial, no longer wishing to appear as the “weaker sex”, would rather have opposed the received idea according to which “women are more cozy than men”. In fact, women are often more cruel to each other than men, especially in the corporate world.
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