Delayed costs of suppressed pain.

Abstract

The study demonstrates that the rebound effect of thought suppression (Wegner, 1989) has an analog in the experience of somatic discomfort. During a cold-pressor pain induction, 63 Ss were instructed either to concentrate on their room at home (distraction), to pay close attention to their hand sensations (monitoring), or to remove awareness of those sensations from mind (suppression). Two min of postpressor pain ratings showed that monitoring produced the most rapid recovery from the pain and that suppression produced the slowest. Suppression also contaminated the interpretation of a subsequent somatic stimulation; later in the experimental hour, Ss who had suppressed their cold-pressor discomfort rated an innocuous vibration as more unpleasant than did other Ss. The strategies are discussed for their necessarily distinct processes of goal evaluation and their possibly differential drain on perceived coping capacities.