User:Anthonyhcole/Pain testosterone and eye-contact


 * When I make eye contact, I can't convey appropriate feelings by facial expression. I can't return a timely, sincere smile when suffering is swamping my sensorium. Failure to display a timely sincere (Duchenne) smile produces aversion and distrust in the observer.


 * Male (but not female) rodents in pain attack their cagemates. I think this propensity to violence in male pain is preserved in humans. Pain (1) induces irritability and (2) impairs emotion regulation and impulse inhibition in humans, and these factors increase one's propensity to express anger. And testosterone level modulates boldness, the quality that, along with impaired emotion regulation and impulse inhibition, turns anger into rage and rage into violence. It's reasonable that our instinctive response to male pain is fear, and it turns out the human male (but not female) face in pain activates the human observer's amygdala.

Pain makes humans neurotic (excessively reactive to negative affect) so, when I'm in pain, negative facial expressions from others, like fear and aversion, hurt a lot ... so much that I can't look at you for fear of seeing that face. If we make eye contact when I'm in pain, you will see my pain or my failure to display a timely sincere smile, and I will see your emotional response: fear and aversion. It's an ugly emotional event for both of us but especially so for me.

Reducing the testosterone level of people in pain may mitigate the fear experienced by those who make eye contact with us.

No one is studying the impact of pain and testosterone on emotional facial semaphore or intersubjectivity.