Action Identification and Meaning in Life in Chronic Pain

This article explores the application of Action Identification Theory (AIT) to chronic pain. AIT holds that every action may be construed in several ways; each action has multiple identities. Construals at a higher, more abstract level confer greater meaning than lower level construals. When an action is interrupted a lower level, more concrete identity with reduced meaning is elicited. This study is a novel attempt to explore the relationship between action and meaning in chronic pain. We hypothesized that interference of activity by chronic pain ‘down-regulates’ the meaning ascribed to activity and consequently acts to reduce a person’s overall sense of meaning in life. We describe the development of a measure of action identification in pain (AIP). In a second study the AIP was administered to 47 chronic pain patients who also completed the Meaningful Life Measure and measures of pain intensity, pain interference, depression, acceptance and optimism. As predicted high levels of action identification were positively correlated with meaning in life and high levels of interference were negatively correlated with meaning in life. Contrary to expectation interference and action identification were not associated. Further analyses revealed that the inclusion of depression, acceptance and optimism (all known correlates with meaning in life) eliminated these independent effects. The implications of action identification for chronic pain are discussed.