Cognitive strategies, experimenter modeling, and expectation in the attenuation of pain.

Verbal reports of pain were obtained from 120 subjects during a base-level pretest and also during a posttest conducted under one of several experimental treatments. The pain stimulus was a heavy weight applied to a finger for two minutes. During the posttest, subjects who had been asked to utilize cognitive strategies for reducing pain (to imagine pleasant events or to imagine the finger as insensitive) showed a reduction in pain as compared to uninstructed control subjects. Subjects led to expect a reduction in pain, but not provided with cognitive strategies, also showed reduced pain during the posttest as compared to control subjects, but the reduction was smaller than for subjects using cognitive strategies. An experimenter modeling procedure, used with one half of the subjects under each experimental treatment, was effective in reducing verbal reports of pain only for subjects with high pretest levels who were asked to imagine pleasant events.