Failure hurts: the effects of stress due to difficult tasks and failure feedback on pain report.

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of task difficulty and perceived success/failure on pain report. The first experiment found that difficult reading comprehension problems led to an increase in pain report. The second experiment found that task difficulty per se may not have accounted for the effects, but that perceived failure of the more difficult task led to increased pain report.

Exercise-induced analgesia: fact or artifact?

This study critically examines the reported exercise-induced analgesia effect in view of the potential stress-induced analgesia of pain testing itself. Two designs were used to test whether previous findings of analgesia were induced by the exercise procedures or by the stress of the pain testing procedures themselves used in such experiments. In the first design, post-test cold pressor pain ratings were obtained from college students following exercise (bicycle ergometry) and two control tasks (minimal exercise and non-exercise).

The effects of experimenter gender on pain report in male and female subjects.

An experiment was conducted that investigated the effect of experimenter gender on the report of pain of male and female subjects. In order to evoke gender-related motives, experimenters were selected for their attractiveness. Subjects were asked to rate cold pressor pain in front of either a male or female experimenter.

Counterstimulation and pain perception: effects of electrocutaneous vs. auditory stimulation upon cold pressor pain.

This study tested the hypothesis that distraction from a painful stimulus is best achieved by concurrent presentation of a similar stimulus. Specifically, it was hypothesized that pain perception would be interfered with, and thus reduced, when a stimulus similar to the sensory features of a painful stimulus was delivered concurrently. Subjects matched aversiveness thresholds for electrocutaneous or auditory stimulation so that both forms of stimulation could be judged to be subjectively of similar affective value.