Beautiful faces in pain: Biases and accuracy in the perception of pain

Abstract The impact of appearance-based information on judgments about the psychological functioning of pain patients was investigated. Video-tapes of low back pain patients experiencing pain were used as stimulus materials. Subjects viewed silent video clips and photographs of the patients' faces and made judgments about the functioning of these patients. These judgments were affected both by patient physical attractiveness and gender. Physically attractive patients and male patients were judged to be functioning better than physically unattractive and female patients. The judgments were reasonably described as biased because the perceived differences about patients varying in attractiveness and sex were not associated with measures of actual patient functioning.

[1]  C. Spielberger,et al.  Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory , 1970 .

[2]  A. Myers,et al.  Evaluating Physical Capabilities in the Elderly: The Relationship Between ADL Self-Assessments and Basic Abilities , 1985, Canadian Journal on Aging / La Revue canadienne du vieillissement.

[3]  R. Barocas,et al.  Physical Appearance and Personal Adjustment Counseling. , 1974 .

[4]  M. Snyder.  On the Self-Fulfilling Nature of Social Stereotypes. , 1977 .

[5]  K. Craig,et al.  Medically incongruent chronic back pain: physical limitations, suffering, and ineffective coping , 1988, Pain.

[6]  A. Beck,et al.  An inventory for measuring depression. , 1961, Archives of general psychiatry.

[7]  K. Craig,et al.  Acute and chronic low back pain: cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions. , 1994, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[8]  Physical Attractiveness and Blood Pressure , 1982 .

[9]  C A Pollard,et al.  The Pain Disability Index: psychometric and validity data. , 1987, Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation.

[10]  D. Berry.  Taking People at Face Value: Evidence for the Kernel of Truth Hypothesis , 1990 .

[11]  Carl L. von Baeyer,et al.  Consequences of nonverbal expression of pain: patient distress and observer concern. , 1984, Social science & medicine.

[12]  A. Feingold.  Good-looking people are not what we think. , 1992 .

[13]  D. Berry.  Accuracy in social perception: contributions of facial and vocal information. , 1991, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[14]  H. Hadjistavropoulos,et al.  Are physicians' ratings of pain affected by patients' physical attractiveness? , 1990, Social science & medicine.

[15]  K. Craig,et al.  Genuine, suppressed and faked facial behavior during exacerbation of chronic low back pain , 1991, Pain.

[16]  Rex Nettleford.  Mirror Mirror , 1971 .

[17]  Francis J. Keefe,et al.  The use of coping strategies in chronic low back pain patients: Relationship to patient characteristics and current adjustment , 1983, Pain.

[18]  J. Turner,et al.  Dimensions of pain-related cognitive coping: cross-validation of the factor structure of the Coping Strategy Questionnaire , 1990, Pain.

[19]  I. Gavanski,et al.  Awareness of influences on one's own judgments: the roles of covariation detection and attention to the judgment process , 1987 .

[20]  R. Sharf,et al.  Counselors' feelings toward clients as related to intake judgments and outcome variables. , 1979 .

[21]  Ronald Dubner,et al.  Ratio scales of sensory and affective verbal pain descriptors , 1978, Pain.

[22]  M. A. Ruda.  Gender and pain , 1993, Pain.

[23]  R. Rosenthal,et al.  Skill in nonverbal communication : individual differences , 1979 .