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Anger Increases Preference for Painful Activities

Although pain typically evokes avoidance, individuals sometimes choose to engage in activities that produce pain. Past research has shown that, under certain circumstances, pain offset may down-regulate negative emotions, so one possibility is that individuals may sometimes choose painful activities to regulate emotion. Thus, painful activities may present an approach-avoidance conflict. The individual may be motivated to engage in the activity to reduce negative affect, but also motivated to avoid the activity because pain is aversive. We hypothesized that approach-related negative affect would increase preferences for painful activities more than avoidance-related negative affect, by increasing approach toward the activity. Two studies tested the idea that approach-motivated negative affect (anger) would increase individuals' preference for painful activities, whereas avoidance-motivated negative affect (fear) would not. Individuals were induced to experience anger, fear or neutral affect (Study 1), or anger or fear (Study 2), and rated their desire to engage in painful and nonpainful activities. Results supported the hypothesis, as participants in the anger condition preferred painful activities more than those in the fear or neutral conditions. Discussion focuses on the implications for understanding when individuals voluntarily engage in painful activities, for example vigorous exercise or nonsuicidal self-injury, to regulate emotions.