Seeing individual pain: can individuation reduce racial bias in pain perception?

Abstract

In the United States, Black Americans are undertreated for their pain. While pain disparities likely arise from a complex interplay of structural, historical, and individual factors, previous research has also highlighted the role of perception. Specifically, perceivers demonstrate consistent biases in the visual recognition of pain on Black versus White faces. As an initial attempt to intervene on this perceptual bias, we conducted three studies examining if providing perceivers with individuating information or motivating their individuation of Black faces could reduce this bias. In Study 1, participants had to consider individuating (e.g., name), categorical (e.g., race), or no personal information (e.g., control) about a target prior to assessing the target’s pain level. In Studies 2 and 3, participants were given instructions about the cross-race effect or about racial bias in pain perception, respectively, and informed about how to avoid these race-based errors prior to standard pain perception and treatment tasks. Across these three studies, we observed that individuation-based interventions did not reliably reduce racial bias in pain perception; that said, individuation did produce a small reduction in racial bias in treatment recommendations, compared to comparison and control conditions. Overall, the effects of individuation were inconsistent and small, casting some doubt on the effectiveness of this approach. Taken together, these data speak to the robustness of racial bias in pain perception and suggest that individuation may not be the best means for intervening on this bias.