the 1950s, in which people were
given ipecac, a drug that usually
induces nausea and vomiting, and
were told it would soothe their
stomachs and ease their nausea.
It worked.
M.M. What is nocebo?
I.K. The nocebo effect is the consequence of expecting bad outcomes.
It has been called ‘the placebo
effect’s evil twin.’ Just as positive
expectations can produce
positive results, negative
expectations can produce
negative outcomes.
M.M. Are some of us
more predisposed to
nocebo than to placebo?
Can we change this predisposition? How?
I.K. The data on this are mixed
and very complicated, although
there is some indication that optimists may be more susceptible to
placebo effects and pessimists to
nocebo effects.
48
M.M. Can we consider voodoo
as a result of nocebo?
I.K. Anthropologists have studied a
phenomenon called ‘voodoo death.’
This occurs when someone is cursed
and subsequently dies. We cannot
be sure how reliable the accounts
of
these
phenomena
are, but the theory is
that a person who
believes in voodoo
can be frightened
to death when they
know they have been
cursed.