Influence of success and failure on pain tolerance

This report deals with the creation of a cognitive set created by a success or failure experience to influence mood and thus affect pain tolerance. Pr evious studies have indicated that the cognitive set could affect performan ce by increasing the motivation of the person. Ninety-five participants (60 men and 35 women) were exposed to a task that permitted the experimenter t o manipulate the outcome as a success or failure. The pain stimulation used was cord-presser. The attribution of either a global or a specific experie nce was also added. Results indicated that the manipulation did affect mood as expected. The success experience especially with a global attribution d id lead to an increase in pain tolerance for men with failure leading to op posite results. For women, counter to expectation, the increase in pain tol erance was obtained for the failure experience. Results were explained as i ndicating that the failure experience led to a challenge for the women who are particularly sensitive to failure in an age of woman's liberation.