(upbeat technical music)
-: Imagine you get in a fight.
A fist fight.
Can you take a punch, and is that a good thing?
My research explores this question
by looking at both pain and aggression.
So what is the relationship between pain and aggression?
Well, previous research has shown
that there is a relationship, that a person in pain
is more likely to engage in aggressive behavior.
But this explanation is a bit too simple.
Because pain is a complex, multifaceted experience,
with different components of the experience
relating to aggression in different ways.
So I asked, how might pain tolerance affect aggression?
Taking a step further, how might pain tolerance
play a role in the relationship
between a history of aggression
and current aggressive performance?
To answer this, I analyzed data
looking at a measure of lifetime history of aggression,
and a measure of physical aggression,
based on a task in a controlled laboratory setting.
In this task, known as the Taylor Aggression Paradigm,
80 participants engaged in 28 competitive
reaction time trials against a fictitious opponent,
with the participants winning 50%
of the time, as pre-programed by the experimenter.
The winner of each trial was allowed
to administer an electric shock
to the loser, with intensity ranging from zero to 10.
With the level 10 shock corresponding
with the participants' pain tolerance,
determined before the start of the test.
In addition, a level 20 shock was included,
which was described to the participant
to be twice the intensity of the level 10 shock,
risking minor tissue damage for their opponent.
This was used as a measure of aggression.
And what our results indicated was that
the relationship between life history aggression
and current aggression was mediated
by pain tolerance.
Meaning that higher historic aggression
predicted higher pain tolerance,
which predicted higher current aggression.
These findings and implications for both
pain and aggression.
So looking at aggression, you see
things like broken relationships,
domestic violence, workplace violence,
all things that require effective interventions
can be specifically tailored to the
pain tolerance of the individual.
And then looking at pain, you see
things like the opioid epidemic,
and how that might have implications
for these drugs that increase pain tolerance
might also be altering aggressive behavior.
Ultimately, these findings afford us
a better understanding of both pain
management and aggression management,
and how being able to take a punch
might have more implications than we think.
Thank you.