The impact of acceptance versus control rationales on pain tolerance

Acceptance approaches, which have been receiving increased attention within behavior therapy, seek to undermine the linkage between private events and overt behavior, rather than attempting to control the form or frequency of private events per se. Research comparing control Versus acceptance strate gies is limited. The present study examined the behavioral and subjective i mpact of a control-based versus acceptance rationale, using a cold presser task. Subjects in the acceptance group demonstrated greater tolerance of pa in compared to the control-based and placebo groups. Only the control-based rationale targeted the subjective experience of pain but it did not differ across rationales. Results confirmed that acceptance was effective in mani pulating the believability of reason giving, a key process measure. By enco uraging individuals to distance themselves from their private events, accep tance methods may help reduce the use of emotional reasons to explain behav ior and hence shift concern from moderating thoughts and feelings to experi encing the consequences of one's action. Acceptance is a promising new tech nique. Its effect is all the more surprising given that it teaches principl es (e.g., "thoughts do not cause behavior") that run counter both to the po pular culture and to the dominant approaches within empirical clinical inte rvention.