DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE COPING STRATEGIES AMONG PAIN-SENSITIVE AND PAIN-TOLERANT INDIVIDUALS ON THE COLD-PRESSOR TEST

A recent study observed a behavioral dichotomy of pain responsivity using a tonic pain model, suggesting that this paradigm might be useful for studying individual differences accompanying this dichotomous pattern. The present study was conducted to replicate this dichotomy and examine group differences on measures of cognitive coping, affect, and pain perception on the cold-pressor test. As found in the previous study, a bimodal distribution of pain tolerance was observed. Forty-seven subjects were classified as pain-sensitive and 24 were identified as pain-tolerant. Consistent with previous studies, more males tended to be pain-tolerant compared to females. Pain-tolerant subjects used significantly less catastrophizing than pain-sensitive subjects, and marginal differences were observed for other coping styles. The groups differed on several pain measures but not on the measures of affect. These results suggest that certain cognitive coping styles are related to pain responsivity, and may be an important distinguishing feature between pain-sensitive and pain tolerant-subjects.