Last updated: Wed, Aug 14, 2024
In 1957 two researchers raised Scottish terriers in isolation cages from their infancy to maturity. When they became adults (the dogs, I mean), they withdrew reflexively from a flame or pinprick and they oriented to the painful stimulus, but they showed no signs of emotional arousal or withdrawal. Their litter-mates who had been raised in a normal environment showed more normal behavior, and so did beagles raised in isolation. That's one side of pain learning.1
Much evidence exists that children learn at least some of their reaction to pain and their attitude to illness by observation. A 1975 study showed that children exhibit the pain syndromes their parents have rather than the syndromes their parents had when the parents were children. This suggests that the children were modeling their parents' behavior. Researchers in 2002 taught mothers to “interact with their children in a pain-promoting or pain-reducing manner” and found that it had significant effects on the children's perceptions of pain. A number of studies have shown that spouses and relatives of pain patients have an increased incidence of pain syndromes.2
Such evidence suggests that reactions to illness and pain, and perhaps illness and pain themselves, are subject to learning. However, the types of controlled studies needed to conclude that these processes do or don't lead to the development of chronic pain disorders haven't been done. It's just an hypothesis that hasn't been well-tested.