People w
ho feel their financial outlook is shaky may actually experience more physical pain than those who feel financially secure, according to new research in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The findings indicate that the link may be driven, at least in part, by feeling a lack of control over one’s life.
“Overall, our findings reveal that it physically hurts to be economically insecure,” says researcher and lead study author Eileen Chou of the University of Virginia. “Results from 6 studies establish that economic insecurity produces physical pain, reduces pain tolerance, and predicts over-the-counter painkiller consumption.”
The research, led by Chou and colleagues Bidhan Parmar (University of Virginia) and Adam Galinsky (Columbia University), stemmed from an observation of 2 co-occurring trends: increasing economic insecurity and increasing complaints of physical pain.
The researchers hypothesized that these trends might actually be linked. They surmised that feelings of economic insecurity would lead people to feel a lack of control in their lives, which would, in turn, activate psychological processes associated with anxiety, fear and stress. These psychological processes have been shown to share similar neural mechanisms to those underlying pain.
Data from a diverse consumer panel of 33,720 individuals revealed that households in which both adults were unemployed spent 20% more on over-the-counter painkillers in 2008 compared with households in which at least one adult was working. And an online study with 187 participants indicated that two measures of economic insecurity – participants’ own unemployment and state-level insecurity – were correlated with participants’ reports of pain, as measured by a four-item pain scale.
Evidence from a lab-based study suggested that economic insecurity might also be linked with tolerance for pain. Student participants who were prompted to think about an uncertain job market showed a decrease in pain tolerance, measured by how long they could comfortably keep their hand in a bucket of ice water; students who were prompted to think about entering a stable job market showed no change in pain tolerance.
And the researchers found that the degree to which participants felt in control of their lives helped to account for the association between feelings of economic insecurity and reports of physical pain.
“Individual’s subjective interpretation of their own economic security has crucial consequences above and beyond those of objective economic status,” Chou and colleagues write.
“By showing that physical pain has roots in economic insecurity and feelings of lack of control, the current findings offer hope for short-circuiting the downward spiral initiated by economic insecurity and producing a new, positive cycle of well-being and pain-free experience,” they conclude.
February 22, 2016