From a cognitive-behavioral perspective, fearful
patients will attend more to possible signals of threat (hypervigilance) and will be less able to shift attention
away from pain-related information. This will occur
at the expense of other tasks, including actively coping
with the problems of daily life.98 This model has become
increasingly popular and a large body of evidence
has supported its assumptions.39,55 However, this
theoretical proposal pays little attention to the
influence of psychosocial variables prior to the pain
experience that could be considered as positive
resources and a source of individual differences. Several
empirical studies have shown that personal
characteristics act as differential variables that
determine how chronic pain patients experience pain
and how they adjust to it.2,26,28,77-80 Although research
has traditionally focused on vulnerability factors, more
recent studies have acknowledged the influence of
resilience resources that may decrease sensitivity to
acute pain37,91 and increase adaptation to chronic
pain.