Empathy? Take two of these and call me in the morning

Article source: Psychology Punk (psychologypunk.com) 

Acetaminophen has long been known to rid people of headache, back pain, and fever. However, recent research strongly suggests that it also numbs empathy, and other emotions. This is surprising, in part, because pain relievers like Tylenol aren’t considered to be particularly strong medicines.

Here are two studies that PROVE this:

#1: Acetaminophen dulls empathy: Dominik Mischkowski, et al (2016)

This Ohio State University study had stories about the misfortunes of others told to two groups of people. One group who had first been given acetaminophen, and one had not. The group that had been given acetaminophen had a reduced empathy response when compared to the other group.

Mischkowski explained that the findings “suggest other people’s pain doesn’t seem as big of a deal to you when you’ve taken acetaminophen. Acetaminophen can reduce empathy as well as serve as a painkiller.

Lest we get ahead of ourselves, Way emphasized: “We don’t know why acetaminophen is having these effects, but it is concerning.”

Dominik Mischkowski, Jennifer Crocker, Baldwin M. Way. (2016). From Painkiller to Empathy Killer: Acetaminophen (Paracetamol) Reduces Empathy for Pain Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsw057

#2: Tylenol numbs the pain of rejection: C. Nathan DeWall, et al (2010)

DeWall and colleagues were interested in the way brain circuitry seems to do double duty when managing emotional and physical pain. They further wondered if a simple pain reliever was enough to tamp down what they referred to as social pain. So, they reached for the Tylenol.

“We didn’t have to use fancy drugs; we didn’t have to get prescriptions,” DeWall said. “All we had to do was find a drug that was safe and effective in alleviating the type of pain that we’re interested in.”

They had two groups of participants take either actual Tylenol or a placebo every day for three weeks. Then the participants played a video game which was fixed to alienate the players. In a nutshell, the players who had been taking the real Tylenol throughout the study didn’t seem nearly as bothered as the players who had been taking the placebo.

C. Nathan DeWall, et al. (2010) Acetaminophen Reduces Social Pain: Behavioral and Neural EvidencePsychological Science DOI: 10.1177/0956797610374741

Article source: Psychology Punk (psychologypunk.com)

Images:
“500,” by Michelle Tribe. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.
“Tylenol,” by Mike Mozart. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.