How the Content and Referential Form of Self-Talk Influence Experimental Pain

Limitations of pharmacological treatments and psychotherapeutic interventions for pain highlight the need for complementary pain-coping strategies. Although questionnaire studies suggest that self-talk may be effective in chronic pain management, experimental evidence remains scarce.

Our three within-subject experiments employed a cold pressor task to investigate the effects of self-talk content (self-compassionate or motivational) and its referential form (first-, second-, or third-person self-reference) on pain experience, assessed via self-reported pain intensity and high-frequency heart rate variability (HRV_HFn).

Experiment 1 (N = 38) examined self-compassionate self-talk. Both experimental conditions ("I" and "You" self-talk) resulted in lower pain ratings than a control condition involving neutral statements; however, pain ratings did not differ between the two self-talk conditions. Experiment 2 (N = 48) examined motivational self-talk. As in Experiment 1, both "I" and "You" self-talk conditions lowered pain ratings relative to the control condition, with no effect of referential form. Experiment 3 (N = 81) focused exclusively on referential form, contrasting first-, second-, and third-person self-talk (the latter using participants' name). Pain ratings did not differ among the "I", "You", and "Name" conditions. Across three experiments, the hypothesized effects on HRV_HFn were not observed.

Although prior research has emphasized the benefits of non-first-person self-reference for reducing threat appraisal and emotional reactivity, our findings suggest that the effects of self-talk on pain depend on its content rather than its referential form. The HRV results are more consistent with studies reporting weak or absent associations between HRV indices and pain intensity.

This study provides experimental evidence that self-talk content-rather than its referential form-influences pain ratings in healthy participants. Self-compassionate and motivational self-talk resulted in lower pain ratings compared with neutral control conditions, whereas first-, second- and third-person forms showed no differential effects. This work suggests that simple, content-focused self-talk strategies may offer a safe, low-cost and easily implementable adjunct to pain self-management approaches.