International journal of behavioral medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Beliefs about expectations moderate the influence of expectations on pain perception.
Expectations congruently influence, or bias, pain perception. Recent social psychological research reveals that individuals differ in the extent to which they believe in expectation biases and that individuals who believe in expectation biases may adjust for this bias in their perceptions and reactions. That is, idiosyncratic beliefs about expectations can moderate the influence of expectations on experience. ⋯ Beliefs about the expectation bias are an important and under-examined predictor of pain and placebo analgesia.