When the expectations from a message will not be realized: Naïve theories can eliminate expectation-congruent judgments via correction

Suggestion Timing Moderates the Effects of Prior Pain Experiences on Pain Perception

Two common elements in patient care are reoccurring painful events (eg, blood draws) and verbal suggestions from others for lessened pain. Research shows that verbal suggestions for lower pain can decrease subsequent pain perception from novel noxious stimuli, but it is less clear how these suggestions and prior painful experiences combine to influence the perception of a reoccurring painful event. The presented experiment tested the hypothesis that the order of these 2 factors influence pain perception for a reoccurring painful event. All participants (702 healthy college-student volunteers, 58% women, 85.5% White) experienced a novel painful event on one arm, then again on their other arm (now a familiar pain event). Participants who received the suggestion that they can tolerate more pain on the second arm relative to the first from the outset, before the initial pain event, perceived relatively less pain during the repeated event as compared to participants who received the same suggestion after the first painful event or no-suggestion (control). Given many pain events within medical contexts are, or become, familiar to patients, further researching the timing at which patients receive verbal suggestions for lower pain can inform practices to optimize the therapeutic, pain-reducing potential of such suggestions. PERSPECTIVE: Providing suggestions that a familiar pain event (ie, the second of 2) will be less painful than a prior event can reduce perceived pain for the familiar event depending on when it is presented. These findings can inform practices to optimize the therapeutic potential of verbal suggestions for reduced pain.

Flipping the Switch

Research suggests that high levels of interpersonal power can promote enhanced executive functioning capabilities. The present work explored whether this effect is contingent upon expectancies concerning power’s downstream cognitive consequences. Study 1 showed that social dominance orientation (SDO) predicted idiosyncratic expectancies of mental energy change toward interpersonal power. Study 2 showed that SDO moderated the executive functioning changes associated with interpersonal power and that this moderation effect was contingent upon changes in perceived mental depletion. Study 3 showed that directly manipulating expectancies of mental energy change concerning interpersonal power moderated the executive functioning consequences of power and that this moderation effect was contingent upon SDO and changes in perceived mental depletion. Together, the present findings underscore the importance of expectancies and individual differences in understanding the effects of interpersonal power.

Beliefs about expectations moderate the influence of expectations on pain perception

BACKGROUND

Expectations congruently influence, or bias, pain perception. Recent social psychological research reveals that individuals differ in the extent to which they believe in expectation biases and that individuals who believe in expectation biases may adjust for this bias in their perceptions and reactions. That is, idiosyncratic beliefs about expectations can moderate the influence of expectations on experience.

PURPOSE

Prior research has not examined whether idiosyncratic beliefs about expectations can alter the degree to which one's expectations influence pain perception. Using a laboratory pain stimulus, we examined the possibility that beliefs about expectation biases alter pain responses following both pain- and placebo-analgesic expectations.

METHODS

Participants' beliefs about expectation biases were measured. Next, participants were randomly assigned to receive either a pain expectation or a placebo-analgesia expectation prior to a cold-pressor task. After the task, participants rated their pain.

RESULTS

Beliefs about expectation biases significantly influenced pain reports. Specifically, pain reports were more influenced by provided expectations the less participants believed in expectation biases (i.e., pain expectations resulted in more pain than analgesia expectations).

CONCLUSIONS

Beliefs about the expectation bias are an important and under-examined predictor of pain and placebo analgesia.

Spoiled Milk: An Experimental Examination of Bias Against Mothers Who Breastfeed

Drawing from the objectification literature, three experiments tested the hypothesis that breastfeeding mothers are the victims of bias. In Study 1, participants rated a woman who had breastfed as incompetent. Study 2 replicated these effects and determined that the bias was specific to conditions that sexualized the breast. In Study 3, participants interacted with a confederate in which attention was drawn to her as a mother, as a mother who breastfeeds, as a woman with sexualized breasts, or in a neutral condition. Results showed the breastfeeding confederate was rated significantly less competent in general, in math and work specifically, and was less likely to be hired compared to all other conditions, except for the sexualized breast condition. Importantly, the breastfeeding mother emphasis and the sexualized breast emphasis resulted in equally negative evaluations. Results suggest that although breastfeeding may be economical and healthy, the social cost is potentially great.