How placebos work
Research, books & talks
A starting library on the science and stories behind the placebo effect. These are third-party sources; the views expressed are those of their authors.
Published studies
- Harvard Health: The power of the placebo effect — how belief and expectation can influence healing and, in some cases, match conventional treatment.
- National Library of Medicine: the case for more placebo research — a call to build better theory around the placebo effect.
- Nature (Scientific Reports): placebos and emotion — tests whether placebo-induced expectations can improve emotion regulation.
- National Library of Medicine: placebos in animals — pharmacological evidence that placebo responses occur in animals as well as humans.
- Harvard Health blog: the placebo effect, amazing and real — measurable physiological changes seen in placebo responders.
- University of Maryland: research on the placebo effect — what is known, and what remains to be studied, about placebo mechanisms.
Articles
- Better Health Channel (Australia): the placebo effect — a plain-language overview, including the origin of the word “placebo.”
- Medical News Today: how the placebo effect works — an explainer on the psychology behind placebo responses.
- Verywell Mind: the placebo effect — an accessible introduction to fake treatments and real responses.
- Time: the placebo effect and pain — reporting on studies of placebos and pain relief.
Books & resources
- Time: people taking placebo pills for health problems — coverage of Dr. Ted Kaptchuk’s work on placebos taken openly.
- The Improvised Life: self-administered placebos — a reflection on Kevin Kelly’s comments about placebos.
- Samueli Foundation placebo guide (PDF) — a clinical guide by Dr. Wayne Jonas on expectation, ritual, and the “meaning response.”
- The Power of Placebos, by Jeremy Howick — an interdisciplinary look at placebos and nocebos.
- How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body, by Dr. David R. Hamilton — how thoughts and emotions can shape the body.
- You Are the Placebo, by Joe Dispenza — neuroscience, behavior, and belief in the placebo effect.
Videos & talks
Search for these experts to watch or listen: Dr. Ted Kaptchuk (Harvard Program in Placebo Studies), Dr. David R. Hamilton, Erik Vance (Suggestible You), and Dr. Andrew Huberman’s episode on placebo, belief, and mindset.
Stoica products are placebos and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or medical condition.