When Do We Not Face Our Fears? Investigating the Boundary Conditions of Costly Pain-Related Avoidance Generalization

However, Experiment 2 was the first and only to also demonstrate generalization of avoidance, ie, choosing the novel effortful armmovements in the absence of pain. These results suggest that uncertainty about the occurrence of pain may delay recovery, due to reduced disconfirmation of threat beliefs when exploring, resulting in persistent avoidance. Perspective: This article demonstrates generalization of instrumentally acquired costly painrelated avoidance in healthy people under conditions of uncertainty.

The results suggest that targeting pain-related uncertainty may be a useful tool for clinicians adopting a psychological approach to treating excessive pain-related avoidance in chronic pain.