How do different types of pain influence empathy?

Different types of pain influence how unpleasantly we perceive it but also how we empathise with others, a German study published in February has revealed.

Visceral pain from inside the body, such as stomach ache, feels worse than somatic pain, such as a finger burn, but it also influences empathy for pain when others are affected — a study at Ruhr University Bochum (RUB), Germany has revealed. The study, published open access (doi: 10.1016/j.jpain.2025.105631) in February 2026 in The Journal of Pain, was conducted on four days and recruited 30 healthy participants — all of whom were in a committed relationship for at least three months.

On the first day, participants were provided with questionnaires and tasks to assess their trait-empathy in everyday life. This was followed on the second day by exposure to various types of pain — a heat stimulus on the skin of the lower abdomen, and interoceptive visceral pain induced by pressure. These two types of pain were then evaluated by the participants — both from their own perspective and from the perspective of both their loved one and of an unknown individual.

Participants were then asked, six days later, to imagine how they personally, their loved one, and an unknown person, would perceive the pain. From this, researchers determined how unpleasant the participants rated the pain, how personally aroused they felt by imagining pain for different people, and how much empathy they felt. The participants again rated their empathic responses when recalling the pain using online based ratings a further two days after this.

“The study shows that interoceptive, visceral pain induces stronger cognitive, affective, and empathic responses than does somatic pain. This is the case both from one’s own perspective as well as when the participants imagined the pain for others,” said Dr Milena Pertz from RUB’s Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology.

Visceral pain was graded by the participants as more intense and unpleasant than the pain caused by heat, and they also felt more empathic concern and personal distress, which applied for both themselves and when imagining their loved one or a stranger experiencing such pain. “The effect was most pronounced when the participants considered their loved-one’s experience,” Pertz explained. “This difference remained stable even in the absence of noxious stimulation eight days after painful stimuli were applied.”

As to the significance of the findings, RUB said the results help to understand how interoceptive bodily threats influence psychosocial behaviour and that the study paves the way for future research into predictive factors for empathic reactions — both in patients with pain as well as in the people who care for them, such as caregivers and healthcare professionals.

Image credit: iStock.com/Paperkites