Negative childhood experiences refer to any events occurring during childhood that involved emotional and/or physical abuse or neglect, (or sexual abuse) and resulted in a disruption to one’s well-being. The amount of negative childhood experiences differs among individuals (e.g. some are spanked a lot, some less frequently, and some never) and may be related to increased symptoms associated with mental illness. During childhood, the child will experience different types of parental bonding, such as overprotection or low caring.
Both negative childhood experience and parental bonding have been seen to effect one’s current fear of imagined painful experiences. The relationship between negative childhood experiences and parental bonding to fear of pain will be observed within the study. Based on many previous studies, there is predicted to be a positive correlation between negative childhood experiences and fear of pain; however, the correlation between parental bonding and fear of pain differs depending on the type of parenting. In the present study, we expect to observe a positive correlation between the amount of overprotection of a parent and fear of pain while observing a negative correlation between the amount of care a parent provides and fear of pain.