ArticleEuropean journal of pain (London, England)2025
Vicarious facilitation of facial responses to pain: Does the others' expression need to be painful?
Article in European journal of pain (London, England), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Action units of facial expressions in emotional contagion.iScience · 2026Article
- Vicarious facilitation of facial responses to pain: Does the others' expression need to be painful?European journal of pain (London, England) · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
introductionPrior exposure to others' facial expressions of pain can lead to a facilitation of pain responses, including its corresponding response channel, namely facial responses to pain. It has been questioned, however, whether this vicarious pain facilitation occurs only when observing others' pain or whether the observation of other negative expressions can trigger similar facilitation of facial responses to pain. The study aimed to test this, by comparing the impact of viewing others' facial expressions of pain versus another negative expression (sadness) and two control expressions (neutral, happiness) on facial responses to pain.
methodParticipants (N = 56; 31 females), watched short video clips of computer-generated facial expressions (pain, sadness, neutral & happiness) before they received painful and non-painful heat stimuli. Facial responses were analysed using the Facial Action Coding System. In addition, subjective and autonomic responses were assessed.
resultsThe prior exposure to others' expressions of pain and sadness versus neutral did not lead to significantly increased facial responses to pain. Likewise, subjective and autonomic pain responses were not facilitated. However, viewing others' expressions of happiness, consistently reduced facial as well as subjective and autonomic responses to pain compared to others' negative or neutral expressions. This dampening effect was not observed for non-painful heat. DISCUSSION: Facial and other pain responses were most strongly affected by prior exposure to others' facial expressions of happiness, which led to a pain-dampening effect. In contrast, the evidence for vicarious facilitation of pain was rather weak in the present study, with no evidence of pain-specificity. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Facial responses to pain - along with subjective and autonomic responses - are reduced when observing others' expressions of happiness, demonstrating pain modulation by positive affective social signals, which may also transfer to clinical contexts.
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