interesting... so you can reduce your pain but you won't give a fuck about other peoples pain.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pain-reliever-tylenol-may-reduce-empathy-study-says/ The researchers asked the participants to rate the noise blasts on a scale of 1 to 10 -- from not unpleasant at all to extremely unpleasant. They then asked them to do the same for another anonymous study participant by imagining how that individual would rate the noises.
The results showed that those who took the acetaminophen rated the noise blasts as less unpleasant for themselves, as well as less unpleasant for others.
In the second part of the experiment, the participants met one another and socialized briefly. The researchers then had them watch, while alone, an online game that allegedly involved three of the people they just met. (None of the participants were actually involved in the game.)
In the simulated game, two of the participants excluded the third one. Those watching were then asked to rate how much they believed that person's feelings were hurt. Again, those who took the acetaminophen rated the pain of this individual as being not as severe as the participants without the drug.
This all led the researchers to conclude that "when you take acetaminophen you might feel less of an emotional reaction when you see someone else in pain," Mischkowski said.
However, he noted that the drug does not eliminate empathy and called the effect seen in the study "moderate."
While more research is needed to determine the possible mechanism behind the connection, the study authors believe the effect involves neurochemical levels in the brain.
"Acetaminophen affects a lot of processes in the brain," Mischkowski said. "Potentially, it affects inflammatory processes which mediate physical pain. It might also be related to serotonin or endocannabinoids or opioids. So all of this leads to potential mechanisms."
The authors note that the research took place in a controlled laboratory setting and the further research is needed to see how the effects may play out in real life.
Still, Mischkowski called the findings "robust" and said he anticipates they must "have real-world implications," which, he said, might lead to either positive or negative consequences depending on the social context.
"Empathy is a really important process for social interactions," he said, "but it depends on who you're empathizing with. If it's someone who needs help and deserves it, that's great, but sometimes we empathize with people who don't really deserve it or might even be abusing it. So it depends on the situation whether an effect of acetaminophen on empathy is a good or bad thing."
The study authors say they will continue to study the potential effects of acetaminophen on people's emotions and behaviors, and want to test whether another common pain medication -- ibuprofen -- has a similar outcome.
That’s why I try to favour topical pain management whenever possible, ointment is safer than a pill. Although I always found acetaminophen pretty good.
gadzooks
Dark Matter
[keratinize my mild-tasting blossoming]
Originally posted by Jiggaboo_Johnson
They should do a study on the twats that do these stupid worthless studies.
Ok, there can be really seemingly worthless studies, such as those saying things that are generally considered to be straight up common sense (although, I personally would argue that they have value in that they actually help determine what are urban myths and old wives' tales).
But studies like this have absolutely fascinating potential implications...
First off, at a more philosophical level, the very fact that we can talk in real terms about how empathy can vary not only between people (huge implications there alone), but even within the same people over time based on such trivial things as whether or not they're taking an over the counter anti-inflammatory!
That's huge!
I mean, it's like that study that found that the sentences handed out by judges were actually dramatically affected by whether they had had their lunch breaks yet*.
* Note: To be fair, the hungry judges study has apparently been criticized, not so much for straight up fabricating data or anything, but for possibly neglecting alternate variables, or from other issues of statistical validity - but, that's how science works, there's always going to be some back-and-forth.
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post didn't die in a fire!
