Why are there differences in pain tolerances?

Essay by staples128High School, 12th gradeA, November 2003

download word file, 3 pages 1.4 1 reviews

This paper deals with the many different reasons why a quarter the population are stotics, another quarter are weak, and the rest of the half are somewhere in between. It has the psychological reasons and the scientific reasons(like the val and met genes, and the mu-opioid). There are probably some grammatical mistakes, and I apoligize for this.

Pain, according to Coach Eric Anderson of the University of California Irvine, is

a subjective, psychological phemonenon. There are two types of pain, clonic and chronic.

Clonic pain is the type that comes on quickly and dies quickly, as well. When the pain

stays with a person for an extended period of time, it is called chronic. People differ in

the degree to which they perceive pain (called pain threshold) and tolerate it (called pain

tolerance), as stated by Sport Psychologist, Mark Anshel. One quarter of the world's

population is stotic, or they have extremely high pain tolerance and threshold, while

another quarter of the populations has a very low tolerance and threshold, known as weak

people. The other half of the world's population is somewhere in between.

Attitude has a lot to do with how well people perceive pain. Most people will

have a significantly higher pain tolerance if there is anybody watching them, or if there is

an audience present. Men are said to have a pre-existing expectance to be macho and

'tough it out'. Women, as a whole, feel little pressure to endure unnecessary pain,

therefore they will give a more unbiased report of their pain. That is probably the reason

that women have more doctor visits than men, and have about 3-10% more reported pain.

It has also been reported that women use more over the counter pain-killers.

Many scientists have discovered that higher pain tolerance in men...