does racial or gender concordance matter?
Weisse CS; Foster KK; Fisher EA Department of Psychology, Union College, Schenectady, New York 12308, USA. weissec@union.edu BACKGROUND: Research on disparities in the treatment of pain has shown that minorities receive less aggressive pain management than non-minorities. While reasons include physician bias, the focus of this study was to examine whether differences in pain reporting behavior might occur when pain is reported to individuals of a different race or gender. OBJECTIVE: To test whether gender and racial concordance might influence pain reporting and pain behavior in a laboratory setting. DESIGN/SETTING: By using a two (subject race)-by-two (subject gender)-by-two (experimenter race)-by two (experimenter gender) quasi-experimental design, pain was assessed in a laboratory through a standard cold pressor task administered by someone whose gender and/or race was similar or dissimilar. SUBJECTS: Subjects were 343 (156 men; 187 women) undergraduates whose ages ranged from 17 to
