I expect therefore I avoid? The effects of negative expectancy learning on pain and pain-related avoidance behavior

Pain expectancies were induced verbally and via conditioning, and avoidance was measured through a novel pain avoidance task in which participants could choose between avoiding a more painful stimulus by playing a difficult game or enduring a more painful stimulus by playing an easy game. In Study 2, adjustments were made to the conditioning procedure and the novel pain avoidance task based on the results of Study 1. Both studies demonstrated that negative expectancies led to hyperalgesia, indicating that the negative expectancy paradigm produces robust effects.

However, negative expectancies did not lead to more pain avoidance suggesting that other factors may be at play in avoiding more pain. Further studies are needed to fully unravel the interplay between expectancies and avoidance in pain. Perspective: This article found that negative expectancies can lead to hyperalgesia but not necessarily to more pain avoidance behavior in individuals without chronic pain.

Findings from this article support the ample studies indicating that expectancies provide a strong target for pain treatment.