Across 10 experiments (N = 1584), we investigated biases in assumptions about pain sensitivity as an explanation for pain treatment disparities across socioeconomic status (SES). We find that lower-SES individuals are believed to feel less pain than higher-SES individuals (Studies 1a-1c), and this effect persists across target demographics including race (i.e., White individuals, Black individuals) and gender (i.e., men, women; Studies 2–3). Next, we examined two potential mechanisms underlying the effect of SES on pain sensitivity: dehumanization and beliefs about life hardship (Studies 4–5). We observed supporting evidence for the differential life hardship account of pain sensitivity biases across SES. Finally, we investigated the downstream consequences of biased pain perception of pain sensitivity for medical care and treatment recommendations, finding that both lay participants (Studies 6–7) and medical providers (Study 8) believe that low-SES individuals are less sensitive to pain and therefore require less intensive pain management. This systematic bias in judgments of pain sensitivity across SES has implications for psychological theory and equitable pain treatment.

横跨10个实验（N = 1584），我们调查了有关疼痛敏感性的假设中的偏见，以解释整个社会经济状况（SES）中的疼痛治疗差异。我们发现，低SES的人比高SES的人感觉更少的痛苦（研究1a-1c），并且这种影响在包括种族（即白人，黑人）和性别（即男性，妇女；研究2-3）。接下来，我们研究了SES对疼痛敏感性影响的两种潜在机制：非人性化和对生活困难的信念（研究4-5）。我们观察到了支持性证据，表明整个SES的疼痛敏感性偏差存在不同的生活困难原因。最后，我们调查了对疼痛敏感性的偏见性疼痛对医疗和治疗建议的下游后果，医疗提供者（研究8）认为，低SES个体对疼痛较不敏感，因此需要较少的强化疼痛管理。SES疼痛敏感性判断的这种系统性偏向对心理学理论和公平的疼痛治疗具有影响。