Numerical self-report scales are extensively used in economics, psychology, and even medicine to quantify subjective feelings, ranging from life satisfaction to the experience of pain. These scales are often criticized for lacking an objective foundation, and defended on the grounds of empirical performance. We focus on the case of pain measurement, where existing self-reported measures are the workhorse but known to be inaccurate and difficult to compare across individuals. We provide a new measure, inspired by standard economic elicitation methods, that quantifies the negative value of acute pain in monetary terms, making it comparable across individuals. In three preregistered studies, 330 healthy participants were randomly allocated to receive either only a high- or only a low-pain stimulus or a high-pain stimulus after having double-blindly received a topical analgesic or a placebo. In all three studies, the new measure greatly outperformed the existing self-report scales at distinguishing whether participants were in the more or the less painful condition, as confirmed by effect sizes, Bayesian factor analysis, and regression-based predictions.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

NCT05415423

https://osf.io/jtv8p

The study was funded by the University research budget of Carlos Alos-Ferrer. No external funding was received.

I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.

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The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

The studies were approved by the Cantonal Ethics Committee in Zurich (BASEC: 2022-00236).

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I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable.

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De-identified participants data and the code for the analyses is publicly available in OSF

https://osf.io/jtv8p