Religious Art Offers Pain Relief to Believers

Of these two pictures by Leonardo da Vinci only the Virgin Mary reduced pain.

New research suggests that when believers view religious art they experience less pain.

Practicing Catholics perceived electrical shocks while viewing an image of the Virgin Mary (above right) as less painful than shocks delivered while looking at a non-religious picture (above left). In contrast, professed atheists and agnostics derived no pain relief from viewing the same religious image while getting uncomfortably zapped on the hand.

The research was done by Katja Wiech of the University of Oxford in England. Bruce Bower wrote an article describing the research in the October 11th issue of Science News.

To read the full article click here

I wonder about the implications of this research on art selection in hospitals. If a patient is known to have strong religious beliefs, should an attempt be made to change the art in their surroundings to offer images which trigger religious feelings?

Thanks to Dr. Upali Nanda for pointing this out to me.