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KIDS feel less pain if they are told in advance how much something’s going to
hurt. Carl von Baeyer and his students at the University of Saskatchewan studied
60 children having their ears pierced. Half were told by a parent to expect a
“medium” amount of pain, while the others were not told anything. The kids that
were forewarned reported much less pain, whether or not they’d expected it to be
very painful (Behaviour Research and Therapy, vol 40, p 253). “The best
policy is to tell them honestly what it is going to be like,” explains von
Baeyer.…