Imperial College London
Alternate

Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham PC KBE FRS FMedSci HonFREng

Faculty of Medicine, Department of Surgery & Cancer

Co-Director of the IGHI, Professor of Surgery
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 3312 1310a.darzi

 
 
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Location

 

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Wing (QEQM)St Mary's Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Story:2020:10.1002/jeab.631,
author = {Story, GW and Kurth-Nelson, Z and Crockett, M and Vlaev, I and Darzi, A and Dolan, RJ},
doi = {10.1002/jeab.631},
journal = {Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior},
pages = {308--325},
title = {Social discounting of pain},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jeab.631},
volume = {114},
year = {2020}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Impatience can be formalized as a delay discount rate, describing how the subjective value of reward decreases as it is delayed. By analogy, selfishness can be formalized as a social discount rate, representing how the subjective value of rewarding another person decreases with increasing social distance. Delay and social discount rates for reward are correlated across individuals. However no previous work has examined whether this relationship also holds for aversive outcomes. Neither has previous work described a functional form for social discounting of pain in humans. This is a pertinent question, since preferences over aversive outcomes formally diverge from those for reward. We addressed this issue in an experiment in which healthy adult participants (N = 67) chose the timing and intensity of hypothetical pain for themselves and others. In keeping with previous studies, participants showed a strong preference for immediate over delayed pain. Participants showed greater concern for pain in close others than for their own pain, though this hyperaltruism was steeply discounted with increasing social distance. Impatience for pain and social discounting of pain were weakly correlated across individuals. Our results extend a link between impatience and selfishness to the aversive domain.
AU  - Story,GW
AU  - Kurth-Nelson,Z
AU  - Crockett,M
AU  - Vlaev,I
AU  - Darzi,A
AU  - Dolan,RJ
DO  - 10.1002/jeab.631
EP  - 325
PY  - 2020///
SN  - 0022-5002
SP  - 308
TI  - Social discounting of pain
T2  - Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jeab.631
UR  - http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000575552500001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
UR  - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jeab.631
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/85178
VL  - 114
ER  -
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