University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Cultural differences on placebo effects elicited by pharmaceutical ads

Xu, Jing

Content Files
XU-THESIS-2017.pdf

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

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
Date of Ingest
2018-03-13T15:44:47Z
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
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/99296
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2017 Jing Xu

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Graduate Dissertations and Theses at Illinois PRIMARY
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Theses - Advertising