Influence of Cognitive Orientation and Attentional Focus on Pain Perception

Recently, a growing interest has emerged in the role of attention and hypervigilance in the experience of pain. Shifting attention away from pain seems likely to reduce the perception of pain itself.

The present study has been designed to test the following overall hypotheses: (1) disposition to catastrophize, self-efficacy perceived in pain resistance (task self-efficacy), previous experiences concerning the tolerance of physical pain, and degree of impulsiveness are significant predictors of the decision to abandon a painful test such as the cold pressor test (CPT); (2) the manipulation of the attentive focus (internal or external) can influence the level of perceived pain.

Effects of the manipulation of attentional focus (internal and external) on pain perception and response of trial abandonment were evaluated in a sample of university students (n = 246) subjected to the cold pressor test.

A significant effect (p < 0.05) was found through a test-retest comparison on the final level of perceived pain among subjects who had received instruction to externalize the focus of their attention (mixed factorial analysis of variance), but no significance was observed with respect to the decision to abandon the experiment. A general explanatory model of the abandonment behavior demonstrating overall good fit measurements was tested too.

The abandonment of tests has been shown to be predicted mainly by catastrophic attitude. Attentive impulsiveness showed a further positive effect on catastrophic attitude. Perceived self-efficacy in the tolerance of pain limited learned helplessness, which in turn positively influenced catastrophizing.