Fear of Severe Pain Mediates Sex Differences in Pain Sensitivity Responses to Thermal Stimuli

Figure 1

Presumptive mediation model. An illustration of proposed mediation model. 𝑎, 𝑏, and 𝑐 are path coefficients. Values in parentheses are standard errors of those path coefficients. Aroian version of the “Sobel test” was used to test indirect effects (equation = 𝑧-value = 𝑎∗𝑏/SQRT (𝑏2∗𝑠𝑎2+𝑎2∗𝑠𝑏2+𝑠𝑎2∗𝑠𝑏2). Key: 𝑎 = raw (unstandardized) regression coefficient for the association between IV and mediator, 𝑠_𝑎 = standard error of 𝑎,𝑏 = raw coefficient for the association between the mediator and the DV (when the IV is also a predictor of the DV); 𝑠_𝑏 = standard error of 𝑏.