Boselie Jantine J L M, Vancleef Linda M G, Peters Madelon L
Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
Clinical Psychological Science, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
J Pain. 2017 Apr;18(4):446-455. doi: 10.1016/j.jpain.2016.12.007. Epub 2016 Dec 27.
Persistent pain can lead to difficulties in executive task performance. Three core executive functions that are often postulated are inhibition, updating, and shifting. Optimism, the tendency to expect that good things happen in the future, has been shown to protect against pain-induced performance deterioration in executive function updating. This study tested whether this protective effect of a temporary optimistic state by means of a writing and visualization exercise extended to executive function shifting. A 2 (optimism: optimism vs no optimism) × 2 (pain: pain vs no pain) mixed factorial design was conducted. Participants (N = 61) completed a shifting task once with and once without concurrent painful heat stimulation after an optimism or neutral manipulation. Results showed that shifting performance was impaired when experimental heat pain was applied during task execution, and that optimism counteracted pain-induced deterioration in task-shifting performance.
Experimentally-induced heat pain impairs shifting task performance and manipulated optimism or induced optimism counteracted this pain-induced performance deterioration. Identifying psychological factors that may diminish the negative effect of persistent pain on the ability to function in daily life is imperative.
持续性疼痛会导致执行任务表现方面的困难。通常假定的三项核心执行功能是抑制、更新和转换。乐观主义，即期望未来会发生好事的倾向，已被证明可防止疼痛引起的执行功能更新方面的表现恶化。本研究测试了通过写作和可视化练习产生的临时乐观状态的这种保护作用是否扩展到执行功能转换。采用了2（乐观主义：乐观与非乐观）×2（疼痛：疼痛与无疼痛）混合因子设计。参与者（N = 61）在进行乐观或中性操作后，分别在有和没有同时进行的热痛刺激的情况下完成一次转换任务。结果表明，在任务执行期间施加实验性热痛时，转换表现会受损，并且乐观主义抵消了疼痛引起的任务转换表现恶化。
实验性诱导的热痛会损害转换任务表现，而操纵的乐观主义或诱导的乐观主义抵消了这种疼痛引起的表现恶化。确定可能减少持续性疼痛对日常生活功能能力负面影响的心理因素至关重要。
