Somatic symptom burden is associated with anger internalization measured as reduced reactive aggression

Higher somatic symptom burden in 44 healthy adults is linked to reduced reactive aggression, with lower noise intensity selections at low and moderate provocation levels.

• Why it matters: It is unclear whether emotion-regulation difficulties related to chronic pain symptom chronification begin before symptoms become entrenched.
• What they did: Participants completed the Taylor Aggression Paradigm and rated somatic symptoms with SSS-8 and PHQ-15; reactive aggression was indexed by chosen noise intensity across low, moderate, and high provocation.
• The result: Greater somatic symptom burden predicted lower overall noise intensity, with significant effects at low and moderate provocation, and difficulty identifying feelings showed a positive tendency, suggesting early behavioral inhibition may be detectable.

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