What makes sense in our body? Psychological and sensory correlates of somatosensory amplification

Abstract

Background: Somatosensory amplification (SSA) was connected to a variety of medical conditions (e.g., health anxiety, somatization, chronic pain), modern health worries, and the nocebo phenomenon in past studies. Despite its practical importance, its conceptual understanding is quite poor. Methods: 212 students completed questionnaires (Somatosensory Amplification Scale, Body Awareness Questionnaire, PHQ-15 measuring subjective somatic symptoms, Big Five Inventory), and 118 students also participated in sensory measurements assessing pain threshold/tolerance, balancing ability, sensitivity to bitter taste, and heartbeat detection ability. Findings: SSA was connected to pain threshold (Spearman's Ï = -.32, p < .001) and tolerance (Ï = -.25, p < .01), perceived unpleasantness of a bitter solution (Ï = .18, p < .05), body awareness (Ï = .26, p < .01), and somatic symptoms (Ï = -.33, p < .001). The final equation of the multiple linear regression analysis (explaining 26.8% of the total variance of SSA) included four significant predictor variables: body awareness (β = .297, p < .001), pain threshold (β = -.254, p = .003), somatic symptoms (β = .249, p = .003), and bitter unpleasantness (β = .189, p = 0.023). Of the five factors of personality, SSA was connected to extraversion (Ï = -.15, p < .05) and emotional stability (Ï = -.21, p < .01). Discussion: Body focus and perceived symptoms are important psychological concomitants of SSA. Concerning the sensory stimuli, only information that (1) reaches conscious processing and (2) might be interpreted as threats to health (e.g. pain and bitterness) is impacted by SSA.