Fernandez E, McDowell J J
Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275-0442, USA.
Behav Res Ther. 1995 Sep;33(7):855-63. doi: 10.1016/0005-7967(95)00005-i.
The quantitative relationship between chronic pain behavior and reinforcement has been generally found to be positive. Herrnstein's statement of the law of effect adds a qualification: it predicts that response rate varies hyperbolically with contingent reinforcement, and that response rate is also negatively related to extraneous reinforcement. The present study is an original investigation of the first of these assertions with regard to the naturally occurring behaviors in chronic pain syndrome. It was found that the stereotypic pain behaviors of 12 chronic pain patients were hyperbolically rather than proportionally related to contingent reinforcement from their significant others. Likewise, healthy behaviors in the same group were a hyperbolic function of contingent reinforcement. Estimates of extraneous reinforcement were also obtained for each category of behaviors. As a group, the subjects showed an inverse relationship between pain behaviors and healthy behaviors, consistent with previous research in the pain area. The present findings add generality to Herrnstein's matching law which serves as a descriptive model of target behaviors in chronic pain patients. The findings also have prescriptive implications for the modification of behavior among chronic pain sufferers.
慢性疼痛行为与强化之间的定量关系通常被发现是正相关的。赫尔斯坦对效果律的阐述增加了一个限定条件：它预测反应率随偶然强化呈双曲线变化，并且反应率也与额外强化呈负相关。本研究是对这些断言中关于慢性疼痛综合征自然发生行为的第一个断言的原创性调查。研究发现，12名慢性疼痛患者的刻板疼痛行为与来自其重要他人的偶然强化呈双曲线而非比例关系。同样，同一组中的健康行为也是偶然强化的双曲线函数。还对每类行为的额外强化进行了估计。作为一个群体，受试者的疼痛行为与健康行为之间呈反比关系，这与疼痛领域以前的研究一致。本研究结果为赫尔斯坦的匹配律增添了普遍性，该定律可作为慢性疼痛患者目标行为的描述模型。这些发现对慢性疼痛患者行为的改变也具有规范性意义。
