Psychology2016

118 CHAPTER 3

I’ve always heard that women are able to stand more pain than

men. Is that true?

On the contrary, research has shown that women apparently feel pain more

intensely than do men, and they also report pain more often than men do (Chesterton

et al., 2003; Faucett et al., 1994; Norrbrink et al., 2003). Men have been shown to cope

better with many kinds of pain, possibly because men are often found to have a stron-

ger belief than women that they can (or should) control their pain by their own efforts

( Jackson et al., 2002).

PAIN DISORDERS People may not like pain, but its function as a warning system is

vitally important. There are people who are born without the ability to feel pain, rare

conditions called congenital analgesia and congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis

(CIPA). Children with these disorders cannot feel pain when they cut or scrape them-

selves, leading to an increased risk of infection when the cut goes untreated (Mogil,

1999). They fear nothing—which can be a horrifying trial for the parents and teachers of

such a child. These disorders affect the neural pathways that carry pain, heat, and cold

sensations. (Those with CIPA have an additional disruption in the body’s heat–cold sens-

ing perspiration system [anhidrosis], so that the person is unable to cool off the body by

sweating.)

A condition called phantom limb pain occurs when a person who has had an arm

or leg removed sometimes “feels” pain in the missing limb (Nikolajsen & Jensen, 2001;

Woodhouse, 2005). As many as 50–80 percent of people who have had amputations expe-

rience various sensations: burning, shooting pains, or pins-and-needles sensations where

the amputated limb used to be. Once believed to be a psychological problem, some

now believe that it is caused by the traumatic injury to the nerves during amputation

(Ephraim et al., 2005). Other research suggests it may be due to maladaptive neuroplas-

ticity, or reorganization of some parts of the somatosensory cortex (Flor et al., 1995; Karl

et al., 2001; Raffin et al., 2016), and yet others suggest this may not be the cause for the

pain, at least not in all individuals (Makin et al., 2015).

THINKING CRITICALLY

What kinds of changes in your life would you have to make if you suddenly could not feel pain?

The response entered here will be saved to your notes and may be

collected by your instructor if he/she requires it.

Submit

BODY MOVEMENT AND POSITION

3.13 Describe the systems that tell us about balance and position and

movement of our bodies.

Besides the systems already covered, there are other senses that tell us about our body.

Kinesthesia and proprioception, awareness of body movement and position, are based

on somesthetic information. Information affecting our balance comes from the vestib-

ular system, which informs us about head and whole-body movement and position.

KINESTHETIC AND PROPRIOCEPTIVE SENSES Special receptors located in the mus-

cles, tendons, and joints provide information about body movement and the move-

ment and location of the arms, legs, and so forth in relation to one another. Some of

these receptors increase awareness of the body’s own movements, or kinesthesia, from

the Greek words kinein (“to move”) and aesthesis (“sensation”). Changes in the skin

stretching as body parts move also provide kinesthetic information.

kinesthesia
the awareness of Dody movement

Congenital insensitivity to pain with
anhidrosis (CIPA) is a rare genetic disorder
that makes 5-year-old Ashlyn unable to
feel pain. She must be examined carefully
for scrapes and cuts after recess at school
because she cannot feel when she hurts
herself, putting her at risk for infection. What
are some of the problems that Ashlyn and
her parents may face as she grows older?