Parsing Science - Transmitting Placebo Effects

Can your doctors’ beliefs about the efficacy of a treatment affect how you experience pain? In episode 65, we’re joined by Luke Chang from the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College. He talks with us about his research into socially transmitted placebo effects, through which patients can pick up on subtle facial cues that reveal their doctor’s beliefs about how effective a treatment will be. His article “Socially transmitted placebo effects” was published with Pin-Hao A. Chen, Jin Hyun Cheong, Eshin Jolly, Hirsh Elhence, and Tor D. Wager on October 21st, 2019 in Nature Human Behaviour.