Cultural differences on placebo effects elicited by pharmaceutical ads

Xu, Jing

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/99296 Copy

Description

Title

Cultural differences on placebo effects elicited by pharmaceutical ads

Author(s)

Xu, Jing

Issue Date

2017-09-27

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Vargas, Patrick

Department of Study

Advertising

Discipline

Advertising

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.S.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

• Placebo effects
• Cultural difference
• Dialectical thinking propensity
• Pharmaceutical ads

Abstract

Placebo and nocebo effects have been a widely concerning issue, as they describe the psychological factors influencing medication outcomes. Previous research mostly focused on how placebo and nocebo effects occur, offering explanations for their mechanisms. Individual differences, especially at the cultural level, are seldom discussed in relation to placebo/nocebo effects. In this paper I consider how cultural backgrounds might influence placebo and nocebo effects elicited by people’s processing of pharmaceutical advertisements. I proposed that cultural differences in people’s dialectical thinking propensity would influence their processing of conflicting information about drug effects contained in the ads. And I proposed that differential information processing would cause differences in people’s expectancies about the drugs’ effects. The hypotheses were not supported in the results. Possible reasons were discussed.

Graduation Semester

2017-12

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/99296

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2017 Jing Xu

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