ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of studies available to date that have experimentally examined some of the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the effects of social factors on the experience of pain, both on subjective pain report and on pain-related neural processing. Effects of more ambiguous interactions on pain were often found to be shaped by individual differences in personality variables linked to the perceived availability of others to meet one's needs. The chapter suggests that social interactions influence pain by modulating processing in a neural salience network, with individual differences in attachment style shaping these neural responses related to weighting safety and threat and integrating these with social contextual factors. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), pharmacological, and electroencephalography (EEG) studies all point to the importance of attachment and individual differences in attachment style in the social modulation of pain, providing support at a neurobiological level for the role of social interactions in signaling perceived safety in the context of pain.
