• Katelynn E Boerner, Christine T Chambers, Patrick J McGrath, Vincent LoLordo, and Rudolf Uher.
• Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada; Centre for Pediatric Pain Research, IWK Health Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Electronic address: katelynn.boerner@dal.ca.
• J Pain. 2017 Jun 1; 18 (6): 702-715.

AbstractSocial modeling is a process by which pain behaviors are learned, and research has found parents act as models for their children's behavior. Despite social learning theory predicting that same-sex models have greater effect, no experimental investigation to date has examined the role of sex of the model or observer in social learning of pediatric pain. The present study recruited 168 parent-child dyads (equal father-son, father-daughter, mother-son, and mother-daughter dyads) in which children were generally healthy and 6 to 8 years old. Unbeknownst to their child, parents were randomly assigned to exaggerate their expression of pain, minimize their expression of pain, or act naturally during the cold pressor task (CPT). Parents completed the CPT while their child observed, then children completed the CPT themselves. Children whose parents were in the exaggerate condition reported higher anxiety than children of parents in the minimize condition. Additionally, girls in the exaggerate condition rated their overall pain intensity during the CPT significantly higher than boys in the same condition. No child sex differences were observed in pain intensity for the control or minimize conditions. Parent expressions of pain affects children's anxiety, and sex-specific effects of parental exaggerated pain expression on children's own subsequent pain experience are present.Copyright © 2017 American Pain Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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