Socioeconomic Status, Perceived Resources, and Susceptibility to Sickness Suggestions: Investigating Whether a Manipulation of Socioeconomic Status Influences Susceptibility to the Nocebo Effect
Public Deposited- Last Modified
- June 15, 2020
- Creator
-
Jones, Katelyn R.
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
- Abstract
- Because individuals with low socioeconomic status (SES) are exposed to greater stressors and perceive having more limited resources, they may be far more susceptible to the nocebo effect than individuals with higher SES. The nocebo effect is a negative reaction to the suggestion that a person may feel unpleasant, despite no environmental reason why this suggestion alone should induce a negative state. I examined the effects of a nocebo suggestion and social status on health symptoms. After administering my nocebo—a suggestion that dust in the lab environment was potentially harmful—I manipulated participants’ subjective social status. We then examined reported health symptoms. My data indicated that being low in subjective SES resulted in greater health symptoms when a nocebo was not delivered. This nocebo effect was actually stronger among those in the low subjective SES condition than among those in the high subjective SES condition. Overall, the findings provide unique insight into the nature of SES and the nocebo effect, and the implications of the findings are discussed.
- Date of publication
- spring 2015
- Keyword
- DOI
- Resource type
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Note
- Funding: None
- Advisor
- Payne, B. Keith
- Degree
- Bachelor of Science
- Honors level
- Honors
- Degree granting institution
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Graduation year
- 2015
- Language
- English
- Extent
- 26
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- Parents:
This work has no parents.
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