Pain is a personal event, yet much research concerns how people compare their pain to the pain of others. In this study, we assessed the relative impact of positive and negative versions of normative, ipsative, and imaginary standards on the experience of pain under laboratory conditions. We expected that self-referent standards (ipsative, imaginary) would have more influence than other-referent standards (normative) on the evaluation of pain. The effect of manipulating these standards on changes in subjects' tolerance times and pain intensity ratings from Trial 1 to Trial 2 was evaluated. The normative and ipsative standards significantly affected pain intensity ratings and the ipsative standard significantly affected tolerance times. These results do not support our intuitions about the relative importance of self-referent standards over other-referent standards in evaluating the experience of pain. The assessment and treatment implications of the enigmatic influence of normative information on pain is discussed.