Race Plays a Role in Pain Empathy

Here is an interesting article from CNN, that describes a recently published  study that has put new meaning to the familiar phrase, “I feel your pain.”  The  scientist were able to gauge the level of empathy by the test participants using biological measures such as sweat gland activity and increased heart rate.    The study stated that people are more likely to empathize with others who are of a similar skin color.

“White observers reacted more to the pain of white than black models, and black observers reacted more to the pain of black than white models,” says the lead researcher, Alessio Avenanti, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Bologna.

The participants in the study were also given a test to see how easily they associate good and bad concepts with people with dark skin versus lighter skin.  Not surprisingly the test to gauge the subconscious bias of the participants correlated with their ability to empathize with that specific group.

The researchers also showed clips of a needle pricking a hand painted bright purple. Both the Italian and African participants were more likely to empathize with this intentionally strange-looking hand than with the hand of another race, which implies that the earlier lack of empathy was due to skin color, not just difference. “This is quite important, because it suggests that humans tend to empathize by default unless prejudice is at play,” says Avenanti.

The article then associates the role of race in pain empathy to the administration of health care.

“A doctor with high racial bias may understand the pain of other-race patients in a more detached or disembodied manner and, in principle, this may contribute to the causes of racial disparities in health care,” Avenanti says.

Previous research has shown that doctors tend to empathize more with a patient’s pain — and provide higher-quality care — if they have a history of pain themselves, or if someone close to them has experienced chronic, debilitating pain, Dr. Green says.

Legal Services organizations can use the findings from this studies to assist in their advocacy efforts to bridge the gap in racial disparities in health care.