Anxiety sensitivity moderates the painful effects of feeling burdensome to others

Abstract

Perceived burdensomeness (PB), the perception of being a burden to others, is associated with pain and physical symptoms. Anxiety sensitivity (AS), the fear of arousal-related sensations, arising from beliefs that the sensations may have adverse personal consequences (physical, cognitive, and social), may increase risk for pain responding, particularly in anxiety-provoking (e.g. socially threatening) contexts. Accordingly, individuals high in AS may have a stronger pain response when experiencing PB than those low in AS. Undergraduate participants (n = 262) completed the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI-3), and then were randomly assigned to re-live an experience when they were either burdensome to others (burdensome condition) or contributed equally to a group (control condition). Both social and physical self-reported pain were assessed post-manipulation. Those high in AS reported significantly higher pain ratings in the burdensome condition than the control condition; for those low in AS, pain did not change across conditions. In particular, being fearful of the physical repercussions of anxiety (AS physical concerns) while also feeling burdensome to others was associated with greater physical pain. AS may exacerbate the already painful effects of feeling burdensome to others, and may have important implications for the development of future suicide- and pain-related interventions.

Keywords:

• Anxiety sensitivity
• perceived burdensomeness
• self-perceived burden
• pain
• suicide

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Ryan and Nola Majoros, Peggy LeRoy, & Adair Currie for their support of this project. We would also like to thank Jim Wirth for his support and intellectual input in the early phases of this project.

Notes

1. There was a marginally significant difference between conditions in how much time had passed since the event occurred, t(1,250) = −2.01, p = .05. To ensure this did not influence our results, we also ran each of our models including this time variable as a covariate and found the same pattern of results, including the same significant interactions as those reported in this article.

2. This effect persisted even when controlling for physical pain F(2, 259) = 24.29, p < .001.

3. When we added social pain to the model, although the overall model was significant F(2, 259) = 16.51, p < .001, Condition still was not a significant predictor (b = −.22, p = .394).