Linda Vancleef

Maastricht University | UM · Department of Clinical Psychological Science

Background and objectives: The Best Possible Self (BPS) has been found to be an effective manipulation to temporarily improve optimism and affect. The BPS has been used in different formats. In some versions, participants just write about their best possible future, while in others this is combined with imagery. An imagery only version has not bee...

Background Cognitive factors play an essential role in the development and maintenance of anxiety problems. Among individuals with illness anxiety problems, their interpretation of bodily symptoms is a crucial factor in the determination of their ability to regulate their emotions. The catastrophic interpretation of ambiguous bodily symptoms and ch...

The current study aims to examine the causal effect of boredom on non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), expanding prior experimental research by including an anger induction to compare to a boredom induction, and additionally measuring whether participants specifically seek painful stimulation. In a sample of mostly undergraduate students (N = 146), emo...

Adaptation to the context in which we experience pain requires cognitive flexibility (CF) and affective flexibility (AF). Deficits in both flexibility types may be precursors of more intense and prolonged pain. This study aimed to examine the relation between CF and AF, and the experience of experimentally induced pain. Furthermore, correlations be...

The fear-avoidance model of chronic pain predicts that catastrophic (mis)interpretation of pain elicits pain-related fear that in turn may spur avoidance behaviour leading to chronic pain disability. Here we investigated whether performing a movement to avoid a painful stimulus in the context of a novel movement increases threat and pain-related fe...

Background Although pain-related avoidance is mainly intended to reduce the accompanying anticipatory fear, avoidance behavior may paradoxically increase fear when a previous avoidance response is no longer available, suggesting that there is a bidirectional relationship between pain-related fear and avoidance. Purpose We hypothesized that avoidan...

Background Effects of emotion suppression on physical health might be contingent on culture. Existing research on emotion regulation has mainly included western participants. Herewith the question arises, whether this gained expertise is transferable to an Asian culture. Objectives This cross-sectional study evaluated to what extent the regulation...

Avoidance is considered key in the development of chronic pain. However, little is known about how avoidance behaviour subsequently affects pain-related fear and pain. We investigated this using a robotic arm reaching avoidance task to investigate this. In a between-subjects design both Experimental Group (n=30) and Yoked Control Group (n=30) parti...

Background: Children of chronic pain patients run greater risk for developing chronic pain themselves. Exposure to chronic pain of the parent might install cognitive (e.g., pain catastrophizing, interpretation and attentional bias) and affective (e.g., pain anxiety) vulnerability which increase the risk for the development of chronic pain complain...

Injury/illness sensitivity (IS) is conceptualized as a fundamental fear that underlies fear-related psychopathology and chronic health conditions, including chronic pain. The current study examines the internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and factor structure of the Dutch version of the injury/illness sensitivity index-revised (ISI-R). In...

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between two aspects of emotional flexibility (EF, i.e. flexible emotional responsiveness and affective flexibility) and tolerance for, and recovery from, experimentally-induced pain. Fifty-two adults completed a flexible emotional responsiveness task in which emotional responses on multiple dimension...

Background and objectives: Amongst social contextual influences on pain, the manner in which pain and painful procedures are communicated to patients is considered an important contributor to the subjective experience of pain. Threatening information, e.g., by the use of technical language, is suggested to increase pain reports. Validation, or com...

Background and aims Interpreting pain- and illness-related stimuli as health-threatening is common among chronic pain patients but also occurs in the general population. As interpretation bias (IB) may affect pain perception and might even play part in the development and maintenance of chronic pain, it is important to improve our understanding of...

Figure S2 Timeline of events in the task shifting paradigm, showing two consecutive runs of trials.

Figure S1 Overview of the PPI modules.

Figure S3 Example of the sorting rules in the Wisconsin card sorting task. Note: colour is not an accurate depiction of the colour used in the task.

Table S1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Table S2 Patient characteristics, displayed per condition.

Fear-avoidance models propose that pain-related fear may spur avoidance behaviour leading to chronic pain disability. Pain-related fear elicits avoidance behaviour, which is typically aimed at reducing fear. We hypothesized that engaging in avoidance may (paradoxically) increase rather than decrease pain-related fear (i.e. bidirectionality hypothes...

Background Chronic pain is associated with emotional problems as well as difficulties in cognitive functioning. Prior experimental studies have shown that optimism, the tendency to expect that good things happen in the future, and positive emotions can counteract pain‐induced task performance deficits in healthy participants. More specifically, ind...

Background and aims: Interrupting ongoing activities with the intention to resume them again later is a natural response to pain. However, such interruptions might have negative consequences for the subsequent resumption and performance of the interrupted activity. Activity interruptions by pain may be more impairing than interruptions by non-pain...

Persistent pain can lead to difficulties in executive task performance. Three core executive functions that are often postulated are inhibition, updating, and shifting. Optimism, the tendency to expect that good things happen in the future, has been shown to protect against pain-induced performance deterioration in executive function updating. This...

The current study with healthy young adults sought to confirm and extend previous work concerning biased interpretation of ambiguous information in the context of pain by taking into account pain catastrophizing, stimulus processing time, using a novel incidental learning task. We expected interpretation bias for ambiguous words favoring health/som...

Background/aims: Pain can interrupt and deteriorate executive task performance. We have previously shown that experimentally induced optimism can diminish the deteriorating effect of cold pressor pain on a subsequent working memory task (i.e., operation span task). In two successive experiments we sought further evidence for the protective role of...

Previous research has shown that in response to a monotonous, boring lab situation, non-clinical participants voluntarily self-administer electric shocks. The shocks probably served to disrupt the tedious monotony: they were the only available external source of stimulation. Alternatively, the shocks might have functioned to regulate the negative e...

Background: Cognitive processes like attentional and interpretation biases have been suggested to play a vital role in the onset and exacerbation of chronic pain. Research consistently supports the occurrence of interpretation bias (IB) in pain patients and healthy individuals high in pain anxiety. Nevertheless, studies on the indirect assessment...

Background An influential idea is that attentional bias to information related to pain or pain-related negative affect underlies persistent pain problems. Such information is however often ambiguous. If ambiguous input is perceived as pain or threat related, attention to this stimulus would be enhanced compared with stimuli with no (dominant) pain-...

In the present study it was investigated whether boredom promotes eating and if so, whether this effect likely reflects an increased drive for rewarding stimulation (positive reinforcement) or more plainly the drive to escape boredom (negative reinforcement). In the latter case, the valence of the stimulation should not matter and people might even...

Individuals with pain-related concerns are likely to interpret ambiguous pain-related information in a threatening manner. It is unknown whether this interpretation bias also occurs for ambiguous pain-related facial expressions. This study examined whether individuals who habitually attach a catastrophic meaning to pain are characterized by negativ...

It has repeatedly been shown that dispositional optimism, a generalized positive outcome expectancy, is associated with greater physical and psychological well-being. Coping has been proposed to mediate this purportedly causal relationship. From an expectancy-value perspective on motivation, optimists’ confidence leads them to tenaciously pursue go...

Coping with the demands of pain diminishes self-regulatory capacity and causes self-regulatory fatigue, which then leads to deteriorated executive task performance. It has been suggested that optimism can counteract the depletion of self-regulatory capacity. This study employed a 2 (optimism / no-optimism) x 2 (pain / no-pain) between-subjects desi...

Accumulating evidence suggests that dispositional optimism might be a protective factor against experiencing pain. The current paper presents two studies investigating the association between dispositional optimism and experimental pain. Moreover, the influence of pain-specific expectations on this association is investigated. In Study 1, mediation...

Previous studies have demonstrated a relation between dispositional optimism and lower pain sensitivity, but the causal status of this link remains unclear. This study sought to test the causal status by experimentally inducing a temporary optimistic state by means of writing about and visualizing a future best possible self. In addition, we explor...

Chronic back pain continues to be a major cause of distress, disability, work loss, and a huge cost to society. This resource examines the risk factors and mechanisms involved in the transition from acute to chronic back pain. It integrates genetic, biomechanical, neurobiological, psychophysiological, psychosocial, and socieconomic risk factors.

Prior research has demonstrated the role of perceived control and self-efficacy beliefs over pain in reducing pain and pain-related disability. The present study aimed to examine the independent influence of perceived control and self-efficacy beliefs on the subjective evaluation of pain. Healthy participants (N = 79) were randomly assigned to one...

Research has identified several anxiety and fear constructs that contribute directly or indirectly to the chronic course of pain. One way to gain insight into the frequently observed interrelations between these constructs may be by conceptualizing them within a hierarchical structure. In this structure, general and specific constructs are proposed...

Research has identified several anxiety and fear constructs that contribute directly or indirectly to the chronic course of pain. One way to gain insight into the frequently observed interrelations between these constructs may be by conceptualizing them within a hierarchical structure. In this structure, general and specific constructs are proposed...

The present study examined the association between pain-related anxiety and an on-line interpretation bias for putative physical health threat. Healthy volunteers (n=80) completed measures on Anxiety Sensitivity, Injury/illness Sensitivity, Fear of Pain and Pain Catastrophizing. Furthermore, they performed an interpretation task, in which spontaneo...

Cognitive biases have been suggested to act as latent vulnerability factors for the onset and maintenance of affective and emotional disorders. Additionally, several global and specific personality constructs are known to influence the course of psychopathology (e.g., trait anxiety, optimism, anxiety sensitivity (AS), injury/illness sensitivity (IS...

According to the biopsychosocial model of chronic pain and disability, the experience of pain is the result of a dynamic interaction between physiological, psychological, and social factors. Fear-avoidance beliefs have been identified as being among the most prominent psychological factors influencing the development and persistence of chronic pain...

Unlabelled: Three fundamental fears are assumed to underlie psychopathology: Anxiety Sensitivity (AS), Injury/illness sensitivity (IS), and Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE). Both AS and IS may form risk factors for the development and exacerbation of chronic pain. The current research examines the relation between these fears and automatic threat...

Three fundamental fears - anxiety sensitivity (AS), injury/illness sensitivity (IS) and fear of negative evaluation (FNE) - have been proposed to underlie common fears and psychopathological conditions. In pain research, the relation between AS and (chronic) pain processes was the subject of several studies, whereas the possible role of IS has been...

The role of anxiety-related constructs in the onset and exacerbation of chronic pain Chronic pain is an important health problem in present society, involving major personal and societal costs. Therefore, it is important to identify the factors and mechanisms that underlie the development and maintenance of chronic pain. The biopsychosocial view o...

Unlabelled: Pain draws on attentional resources, thereby disturbing the pursuit of ongoing activities. Several studies have made use of the primary task paradigm to study the disruptive function of pain on attention. In this paradigm, participants perform an attentionally demanding task, while they are occasionally distracted by mild electrical st...

Lage-rugpijn Lage-rugpijn is een veelvoorkomende klacht. Bij het merendeel van de mensen die op enig moment rugpijn ervaren verdwijnen de klachten binnen enkele weken. Bij sommigen blijven de klachten echter langdurig aanwezig, resulterend in een toestand van chronische lage-rugpijn. Ondanks dat de kennis over pijn de laatste decennia is toegenomen...