Journal of Psychiatry

The effect of competition and mental toughness on measures of pain tolerance

28^th International Conference on Psychiatry & Psychology Health

May 06-07, 2019 | Amsterdam, Netherlands

Rachel Kenworthy

Leeds Trinity University, UK

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Psychiatry

Abstract:

Mental toughness is a multidimensional construct that has been associated with increased resilience to stress and the ability to overcome setbacks. Mental toughness has mainly been researched in professional sportspeople, demonstrating that mental toughness is associated with greater pain tolerance and improved rehabilitation following injury. The current study aimed to examine whether mental toughness was associated with measures of pain tolerance, assessed using the cold pressor task (CPT), in a non-specialized sample. Further, the study aimed to examine the effect of introducing social and personal competition on measures of pain tolerance. Eighty-six (86 females; age: 23.14, 5.84) participants attended four experimental test sessions in a counterbalanced order. A Social competition was introduced by having two participants complete the CPT at the same time. A personal competition was introduced by having participants perform against a timer and against a personal immersion time goal. Differences in pain tolerance were assessed using the CPT with the following outcome variables: total immersion time, time of pain onset since immersion (pain threshold) and post-CPT self-reports of pain. Results indicated that there was no effect of competition condition on measures of pain tolerance. Increased mental toughness was associated with increased pain tolerance, evidenced by longer immersion times and increased pain thresholds. There was no association between mental toughness and post-CPT self-reports of pain. These findings support and extend previous research and suggest that mental toughness may have an important role, and be a target for intervention, in improving tolerance to pain in the clinical population.

Biography :

Rachel Kenworthy is a second year PhD student at Leeds Trinity University. Her thesis adopts a biopsychological approach to investigate the role of mental toughness in mediating pain tolerance, with the aim of developing an intervention to improve mental toughness to help individuals with chronic pain cope more effectively.

E-mail: rachelkenworthy@yahoo.co.uk