The closer you feel, the more you care: Positive associations between closeness, pain intensity rating, empathic concern and personal distress to someone in pain
Open accessAbstract
Previous research revealed inconsistent findings regarding affective responses when facing someone in pain (i.e., empathic concern and/or personal distress). In this paper, we suggest that the degree of closeness between the observer and the person in pain may account for these contradictory results, such that greater closeness towards this person leads to higher personal distress. To test this hypothesis, we induced either low or high closeness with a confederate in 69 randomly assigned participants. Following the closeness induction, participants evaluated their affective responses (empathic concern and personal distress) and rated the confederate's pain intensity after watching the confederate undergoing a painful cold pressure task. Results showed that, despite the non-significant effect of closeness induction, closeness across both conditions (low and high) was positively correlated with pain intensity rating, empathic concern and personal distress. This study thus suggests that closeness is associated with higher cognitive and affective responses to a person in pain.
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Therapeutic alliance's negative association with fear decrease may be because emotional closeness with the facilitator causes members to worry about the facilitator's health.
“Therapeutic alliance was negatively associated with the decrease in fear of the coronavirus, as it is possible that the development of emotional closeness between the group facilitator and the members’ is likely to cause members’ concern about the facilitator’s health and well-being (Grynberg & Konrath, 2020).”
From Therapeutic Factors and Member Satisfaction in an Online Group Intervention During the COVID-19 Pandemic (2021) · cites this paper as Grynberg & Konrath, 2020
The Correlations section (p. 11) reports that greater closeness with a person undergoing pain was associated with greater empathic concern and distress, which supports the proposed link between closeness and concern for another person. The paper does not test therapeutic alliance, concern for a facilitator’s health, or changes in fear of the coronavirus; its findings also do not establish that closeness causes concern. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredBidirectional interactions between areas involved in PPS representation and the anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insular cortex could mediate the enhancing effect of physical and psychological closeness on empathic pain perception.
“Since ACC and AIC are also involved in affective pain-related processes such as empathic pain (Timmers et al. 2018), bidirectional interactions between areas involved in PPS representation and these regions could mediate the enhancing effect of physical and psychological closeness on empathic pain perception (Grynberg and Konrath 2020).”
From Neuroanatomical correlates of peripersonal space: bridging the gap between perception, action, emotion and social cognition (2024) · cites this paper as Grynberg and Konrath 2020
The Discussion (pp. 12–13) reports that greater interpersonal closeness was associated with higher ratings of another person’s pain, empathic concern, and personal distress. It does not establish an effect of physical distance or propose bidirectional interactions between peripersonal-space regions and the ACC or anterior insula as the mechanism. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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References 52 · Cited by 36
- Authors
- Grynberg, D., & Konrath, S.
- Affiliations
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Indiana University Indianapolis (US)
- Corresponding author
- Grynberg, Delphine
- Venue
- Acta Psychologica
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2020-10
- Volume
- 210
- Pages
- 103175
- ISSN
- 0001-6918 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3082050028
- Cited by
- 36
- References
- 52
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 2.20
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Acta Psychologica (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Funders
- Belgian American Educational Foundation
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Empathy and Medical Education
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Keywords
- closeness, empathic concern, personal distress, pain intensity ratings, social distance, pain perception, cold pressor task
- MeSH terms
- Physical Distancing, Emotions, Empathy, Humans, Pain, Random Allocation
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