Failure hurts: the effects of stress due to difficult tasks and failure feedback on pain report

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of task difficulty and perceived success/failure on pain report. The first experiment found that difficult reading comprehension problems led to an increase in pain report. The second experiment found that task difficulty per se may not have accounted for the effects, but that perceived failure of the more difficult task led to increased pain report. Social and theoretical implications are discussed. Failure may lead to negative affectivity, which can increase the report of painful stimuli.