May 30, 2017 9:00AM
Pain is something that most people try to avoid. The experience of pain, however, may be better understood as providing an important avenue through which we find enjoyment in life. Focusing on acute physical pain, but also painful experiences more generally, and drawing on both experimental studies and surveys of real-world experiences, I will provide evidence that pain can restore virtue, enhance pleasure, draw us closer to others, increase pro-social behaviour, and promote positive group processes. I will argue that pain is not simply incidental to these positive outcomes, but plays a central role in their production.
In this webinar you will learn:
- To take a different perspective on pain
- About research which identifies some of the positive consequences that pain can have
- To think about the differences between good pain and bad
- To consider whether pain is something that we need in order to feel happy in life which it is in fact a necessary ingredient for our experience of pleasure