Two studies examined the hypothesis that acceptance and control-based interventions for pain have specific self-regulatory costs and benefits. Both studies consisted of volunteers from a sample derived from the pool of psychology students at the University of Manitoba. Relative to control-based coping, acceptance was predicted to be associated with: 1) Normalization of time distortion; 2) Faster post-stimulus pain recovery 3) Preservation of self-regulatory energy required for acts of self-control; 4) Stronger pain coping self-efficacy beliefs, relative to two control-based coping strategies: suppression and distraction, and 5) improved pain tolerance. Study I (N=180) showed no group differences for pain tolerance, retrospective duration judgments or self-efficacy ratings, and weak evidence of differential pain recovery effects. As predicted, temporal speed ratings were slower for the suppression condition relative to the distraction condition. In Study II the pattern of condition effects for temporal speed was replicated though the statistical main effect only approached significance. In Study II (N=190), between-group differences were detected for pain tolerance, pain recovery, retrospective duration judgments and self-efficacy belief variables. As predicted the distraction group showed higher pain tolerance than the suppression group. Contrary to prediction, the difference between distraction and acceptance for pain tolerance was not significant. Contrary to predictions the greatest normalization of retrospective duration distortion occurred in the distraction condition. As predicted, post-intervention self-efficacy ratings were higher for acceptance than suppression but the difference between acceptance and distraction was not significant. Predicted pain recovery effects were also detected in Study II such that pain ratings for the suppression and distraction conditions were higher than for the acceptance condition at 60 and 120 seconds post-tolerance. Hypothesized between-group differences for self-regulatory-strength depletion were not confirmed. Possible reasons for lack of difference between acceptance and distraction on pain tolerance ratings and ego depletion measures, as well as possible future research directions were discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:MWU.1993/4104 |
| Date | 08 September 2010 |
| Creators | Decter, Matthew |
| Contributors | Johnson, Edward (Psychology), Martin, David (Psychology) Mackenzie, Corey (Psychology) Roy, Ranjan (Social Work) Sullivan, Michael (Psychology, McGill University) |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
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