Background: Adults with chronic orofacial pain experience significantly impaired daily functioning and reduced quality of life. Patient expectations are recognized as useful in medical treatment. However, we know little about coping behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes influencing disability or expectations in adults with chronic orofacial pain. Purpose: Positive psychological factors are protective against functional impairment and are implicated in placebo and expectations of analgesia. Examining the relationships between psychological factors, pain-related disability, and patient expectations will help identify correlates of disability, and individual susceptibility to placebo effects, a useful pain management modality. Methods: Three cross-sectional studies explored the correlates of pain-related disability and determined the influence of resilience on pain-related disability and patient expectations in adults with temporomandibular disorder. This study used secondary data from a clinical trial of placebo manipulation to examine the relationships between patient expectations of analgesia and psychological factors (resilience, dispositional optimism ) and a correlational observation design to explore the relationship between personal characteristics and psychological factors and pain-related disability in adults with TMD. The Aims were to 1) determine how positive and negative psychological constructs, jaw function, and chronic overlapping pain conditions contribute to pain-related disability; 2) describe the coping strategy patterns which patients engage in and compare the differences in these patterns based on pain characteristics; and 3) determine the relationship between pain resilience, pain interference, and patients expectations. Results Study 1 found that Resilience factors, optimism, and positive affect had a positive relationship with pain-related disability. Study 2 demonstrated chronic orofacial pain patients used both wellness and illness coping strategies. High Pain interference, Pain intensity, and Pain catastrophizing were associated with higher frequency use of all coping strategies. Study 3 revealed that pain resilience had an inverse relationship with pain disability and a direct and positive relationship with patient expectations. Conclusion: Psychosocial factors are important targets for clinical management of chronic pain. The effect of pain resilience on pain interference and reinforced expectations of analgesia means that clinicians focus efforts on building pain-resilient mechanisms, which can result in improved pain outcomes, augment its effect on expectations, and directly influence placebo treatment outcomes.