THE FOLLY OF EFFORT - IRONIC EFFECTS IN THE MENTAL CONTROL OF PAIN

During exposure to pain, participants who were engaged in hypnotic ana lgesia or stress inoculation provided pain reports every 5 s and 45 s, respectively. It was found that the frequency of pain reporting had a significant effect on participants' level of experienced pain. This f inding is discussed in the context of important methodological implica tions for laboratory investigations of analgesia. Furthermore, prelimi nary evidence was obtained suggesting that high hypnotizables in hypno tic analgesia remained relatively undisrupted by frequent pain reporti ng. Based on Wegner's (1994) ironic process theory, it is argued that this pattern of results is inconsistent with theories of hypnosis that propose that hypnotized individuals intentionally engender responses while remaining unaware of their sustained, deliberate effort. The obt ained pattern of results was, however, predicted from the dissociated control model of hypnosis (Bowers, 1990, 1992).