Year: 2011
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Research has demonstrated that children’s pain is underestimated in clinical settings. Nurses in particular have been highlighted as the professional group most \nlikely to underestimate their pain. Contemporary theories of evolutionary psychology propose that pain assessment is a social exchange situation (e.g. Kappeser et al. \n2006), whereby benefits (analgesia) are exchanged with another person when they have paid a cost (pain). A social contract is the cognitive mechanism that supports \nthe exchange of benefits between people. It was proposed in this study, that nurses enter into a social contract with their patient in a pain assessment scenario. Additionally it was suggested that the underestimation of pain occurs in response to \ncheater-detection; a cognitive mechanism that has developed to ensure the fair \ndistribution of benefits to people in need. It was hypothesised that when rating in a \nsocial contract condition, nursing students would impute less pain than when they \nwere rating in a non-social contract condition. This effect would be strengthend \nwhen the participant suspected cheating. It was also proposed that participants in \nthe social contract condition would rate higher levels of exaggeration and would be \nless likely to reduce pain when they suspected cheating.
Author: Laura Charlton
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1600396358