Dread and the Disvalue of Future Pain
Story and colleagues note that standard theories predict that people should defer a punishment and advance a reward, yet with pain people often prefer to bring it forward, implying that anticipation carries a cost, often called dread. It is unknown how dread depends on delay or whether it is stable or shaped by framing. They examine choices between different numbers of painful shocks delivered at different times up to a quarter of an hour ahead, and choices between hypothetical painful dental procedures.
Story and colleagues note that standard theories predict that people should defer a punishment and advance a reward, yet with pain people often prefer to bring it forward, implying that anticipation carries a cost, often called dread. It is unknown how dread depends on delay or whether it is stable or shaped by framing. They examine choices between different numbers of painful shocks delivered at different times up to a quarter of an hour ahead, and choices between hypothetical painful dental procedures.
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Story, G. W., Vlaev, I., Seymour, B., Winston, J. S., Darzi, A., & Dolan, R. J. (2013). Dread and the Disvalue of Future Pain. PLoS Computational Biology, 9(11), e1003335. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003335.