OPERANT-CONDITIONING OF THE PAIN EXPERIENCE

Two experiments were carried out to study operant conditioning of pain report. Further, it was investigated whether pain-related psychophysi ological and psychological measures (skin conductance response and mag nitude matching) could also be conditioned operantly. In both experime nts subjects received 12 painful electric shocks of equal intensity. I n Exp. 1 healthy subjects were assigned to either a control group or a n up-conditioning group. Up-conditioning occurred by verbally rewardin g increases in pain report and punishing decreases. Analyses indicated that up-conditioning of both pain report and the pain-related psychop hysiological measures succeeded. To rule out alternative explanations of the results (attention shift towards pain and conditioning of anxie ty) the verbal punishments were adjusted in Exp. 2. A down-conditionin g group was also added. The attempt to replicate the results of Exp. 1 failed and down-conditioning of the pain report could not be establis hed. These inconsistent results are most probably due to modified puni shment of responses. The consequences for the results of Exp. 1 are di scussed. Based on the results of post hoc analyses, some suggestions a re made for operant conditioning studies of pain.