Easily swayed

The placebo and nocebo effects are well known in healthcare but they happen in psychological experiments, too.

- Marc Wilson

As you read this, I'm in beautiful Clyde in central Otago, enjoying the 2023 Innovations in Health Psychology conference, organised every couple of years by Keith Petrie of the University of Auckland. This year, I'm pretending to do health psychology by presenting research that I started about a decade ago.

A strong focus in some of the conference presentations is on placebo and nocebo effects. The placebo effect is a positive response to something that doesn't actually have a "real" effect (eg, sugar pills). A nocebo is the reverse - a negative response to something that doesn't have a real effect (eg, witchcraft). I am interested in placebo and nocebo effects, and not just in the context of health.