Journal of personality
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Journal of personality · Apr 2005
Hope against the cold: individual differences in trait hope and acute pain tolerance on the cold pressor task.
Hope theory (see Snyder, 1994) is presented as a useful framework for understanding reactions to pain. In Study 1, persons scoring higher on the trait Hope Scale (Snyder, Harris et al., 1991) kept their hands in the freezing water (of a cold pressor task) for significantly longer. ⋯ Moreover, in Study 2, results showed that individual differences measures of optimism, self-efficacy, depression, and positive and negative affects did not relate to the pain onset and tolerance variables. The implications of hope as related to the pain process and related research are discussed.