Experimental Health Psychology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands; Laboratory of Biological Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Centre for Operations Research and Statistics, KU Leuven, Brussels, Belgium; Research Group on Quantitative Psychology and Individual Differences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Behav Res Ther. 2022 Nov;158:104199. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2022.104199. Epub 2022 Sep 14.
Fear-avoidance models of chronic pain consider excessive spreading (or overgeneralization) of pain-related avoidance toward safe activities to play a crucial role in chronic pain disability. This study (N = 96) investigated whether avoidance generalization is mitigated by positive affect induction. Pain-free, healthy participants performed an arm-reaching task during which certain movements were followed by pain, while another was not. One group then performed an exercise to induce positive affect (positive affect group), while another group performed a neutral exercise (neutral group). A third group also performed the neutral exercise, but did not learn to avoid pain during the arm-reaching task (yoked neutral group). To test generalization, we introduced novel but similar movements that were never followed by pain in all groups. Results showed no differences in generalization between the positive affect and neutral groups; however, across groups, higher increases in positive affect were associated with less generalization of avoidance, and less generalization of pain-expectancy and pain-related fear. Compared to the yoked neutral group, the neutral group showed avoidance generalization, as well as pain-expectancy and pain-related fear generalization. These results point toward the potential of positive affect interventions in attenuating maladaptive spreading of pain-related avoidance behavior to safe activities.
回避恐惧模型认为，慢性疼痛患者会过度泛化（或普遍化）对安全活动的回避，从而在慢性疼痛残疾中起关键作用。本研究（N=96）调查了积极情绪诱导是否可以减轻回避的泛化。无痛、健康的参与者在执行手臂伸展任务时，某些动作会伴随疼痛，而另一些则不会。一组参与者随后进行了一项积极情绪诱导的运动（积极情绪组），而另一组进行了中性运动（中性组）。第三组也进行了中性运动，但在手臂伸展任务中没有学习到回避疼痛（配对中性组）。为了测试泛化，我们引入了在所有组中从未出现过疼痛的新的但类似的动作。结果显示，积极情绪组和中性组之间的泛化没有差异；然而，在所有组中，积极情绪的增加与回避、疼痛预期和疼痛相关恐惧的泛化减少相关。与配对中性组相比，中性组表现出回避的泛化，以及疼痛预期和疼痛相关恐惧的泛化。这些结果表明，积极情绪干预有可能减轻对安全活动的疼痛相关回避行为的不良扩散。
