Intraindividual change in pain tolerance and negative affect over 20 years: findings from the MIDUS study

Pain tolerance, defined as the ability to withstand physical pain states, is a clinically important psychobiological process associated with several deleterious outcomes, including increased pain experience, mental health problems, physical health problems, and substance use. A significant body of experimental work indicates that negative affect is associated with pain tolerance, such that increased negative affect is associated with decreased pain tolerance. Although research has documented the associations between pain tolerance and negative affect, little work has examined these associations over time, and how change in pain tolerance is related to changes in negative affect. Therefore, the current study examined the relationship between intraindividual change in self-reported pain tolerance and intraindividual change in negative affect over 20 years in a large, longitudinal, observation-based national sample of adults (n = 4,665, M_age= 46.78, SD =12.50, 53.8% female). Results from parallel process latent growth curve models indicated that slope of pain tolerance and negative affect were associated with each other over time (r = .272, 95% CI [.08, .46] p = .006). Cohen's d effect size estimates provide initial, correlational evidence that changes in pain tolerance may precede changes in negative affect. Given the relevance of pain tolerance to deleterious health outcomes, better understanding how individual difference factors, including negative affect, influence pain tolerance over time, are clinically important to reduce disease-related burden.