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The Effect of Brief Lamaze Training and Social Encouragement on Pain Endurance in a Cold Pressor Tank 1
Author(s) -
Worthington Everett L.,
Martin Glen A.,
Shumate Michael,
Carpenter Johnice
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1983.tb01736.x
Subject(s) - assertiveness , personality , psychology , endurance training , set (abstract data type) , childbirth , social psychology , clinical psychology , physical therapy , medicine , pregnancy , computer science , programming language , biology , genetics
The Lamaze method of childbirth involves educating women in pain control techniques and training men to “coach” the women through labor by giving social encouragement to endure pain. In a cold pressor experiment, women volunteers ( N = 52) received either Lamaze training (or none) or direct social encouragement to tolerate ice water (or none). Women were tested for tolerance before and after training. They also completed the California Q‐Set personality description and an assertiveness questionnaire. The Lamaze training induced longer endurance among participants, whereas direct social encouragement induced very long endurance for some but little for others. The combined treatment powerfully induced endurance in many even though considerable variance was evident. Analyses of Q‐Set responses and the assertiveness measure revealed little to help predict who endured the pain. Results suggested that, in this situation, environmental variables were more important in predicting endurance than personality variables.