Cultural Factors and the Response to Pain: A Review1

A review of the literature on the effects of ethnocultural factors on the response to pain revealed a paucity of information. The few existing experimental studies yield equivocal results as to the significance of such factors and suffer from anthropological naivete. On the other hand, only one anthropological report dealing specifically with this problem was found, but it lacks experimental control of pain. Consequently, the question as to whether or not there are basic differences between ethnocultural groups in the response to pain remains unanswered. However, there is some experimental evidence that attitudinal factors do influence the response to pain within cultural groups. There is thus a need for the cultural anthropologist to combine forces with the medical investigator in order to add to our knowledge about the pain response.