Okun Lab - Chronic Pain and the Enterprise of Living

This is a federally funded project (Paul Karoly is the PI) that involves testing a model of how a set of risk and resilience factors influence the association between day-to-day fluctuations in pain and progress in the pursuit of daily goals among people with chronic pain. The research project is carried out in two phases. In phase 1, participants will come to campus (or perhaps an off-campus lab) where they will be given a battery of executive functioning measures, be interviewed to elicit their most important work and life style goals, and complete paper-and-pencil measures that assess individual difference in several psychological variables such as pain acceptance, pain catastrophizing, and pain defensive pessimism. Finally, participants will be trained in how to use their cell phone so that they can participate in the phase two portion of the study. In Phase 2, participants will be called three times a day for 21 consecutive days and will respond via their cell phone to a series of questions that assess pain intensity, positive and negative affect, goal process cognition, and goal progress.

Both PGS 399 & 499 credit is offered the first semester working in the lab.