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- Title
Category-based generalisation of pain-related avoidance behaviour.
- Authors
Glogan, E.; Gatzounis, R.; Bennett, M.; Holthausen, K.; Liu, P.; Meulders, A.
- Abstract
Introduction: People with chronic pain often fear and avoid movements and activities that are safe2. This may be due to these safe behaviours being associated with the same category as a painful behaviour1 Methods: In two studies, we investigated category-based pain-related avoidance generalisation. In Study 1, participants performed activities from two different real-life categories (gardening and cleaning) in a computer environment, using a joystick. Participants learned to avoid a painful stimulus in one of the categories, by performing the activity in a costlier way. The other category was always safe. Subsequently, four novel exemplars from each of the two categories were introduced, in the absence of pain. In Study 2, two groups learned to categorise the same arm-movements in different ways, using a robot. Subsequently, the groups underwent an avoidance acquisition phase, where two movements were paired with pain and one was not. Finally, the movements categorically related to the acquisition movements were made available, in the absence of pain. Results: In both experiments, pain-related avoidance generalised as expected. In Study 1, participants avoided during novel exemplars of the pain-associated category. In Study 2, the two groups generalised avoidance differently, based on the categories they previously learned. Discussion: This shows that pain-related avoidance can generalise to safe behaviors categorically. This form of generalization is important because category-based relations can be extremely wide-reaching and idiosyncratic. Process evaluation: In the real world, avoidance can become extremely costly3. In Study 1, avoidance was costly, but not in Study 2. This may complicate the comparability of the two studies.
- Subjects
NETHERLANDS; CHRONIC pain &; psychology; ACTIVITIES of daily living; TASK performance; CONFERENCES &; conventions; AVOIDANCE (Psychology); HEALTH behavior
- Publication
Pain Practice, 2022, Vol 22, p23
- ISSN
1530-7085
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/papr.13128