We are excited to share that Dr. Geers has co-authored a new book chapter titled “The COVID-19 Pandemic: A Special Case of Placebo and Nocebo Effects” in Placebo Effects in Neurology (Handbook of Clinical Neurology, Vol. 213). Read more here: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41161963/

Congratulations to Dr. Emily Spotts for successfully defending her dissertation, "A multi-study investigation into nocebo education as a method for reducing treatment side effects"! Emily's work examined ways to improve educational interventions about nocebo effects.

We are thrilled to share that poster abstracts by graduate students Emily Spotts and Michael Vang, as well as undergraduate student Darine Schreidah, have been accepted for presentation at SPSP 2026! Congratulations to all! We hope to see you there as well!

Our systematic review of research about educational interventions to reduce nocebo effects was just published in Annals of Behavioral Medicine #ABM. We summarize trends and propose valuable next directions in this promising field of work. @socialhealthlab.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/abm/...

We are thrilled to share that poster abstracts by graduate students Emily Spotts and Michael Vang, as well as undergraduate student Darine Schreidah, have been accepted for presentation at SPSP 2026! Congratulations to all! We hope to see you there as well!

Dr. Geers and Emily Spotts were awarded a grant for $2,500 from the Center for Open Science (COS) as part of the “Replicability Project: Health Behavior,” which is a large-scale, multi-team effort to replicate published quantitative health research studies. Congratulation!

We are excited to share a new publication titled, “Not So Great Expectations: The Role of Price and Name Information in the Nocebo Effect,” with our collaborators! Read the full article by clicking on the link below. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Graduate student Emily Spotts and PI Dr. Andrew Geers have an article in press entitled "Interventions that Inform Patients about Nocebo Effects: A Systematic Review of the Current Evidence”. Look for it this fall in Annals of Behavioral Medicine!

We’re excited to kick off the Fall semester and dive back into research! Our lab is looking forward to starting our research projects and making great progress this semester.

Graduate student Emily Spotts successfully proposed her dissertation titled "A Multi-Study Investigation into Nocebo Education as a Method of Reducing Treatment Side Effects." Congrats, Emily (@emily-k-spotts.bsky.social)!

Dr. Andrew Geers gave an invited plenary talk at the 5th International Conference of the Society for Interdisciplinary Placebo Studies (SIPS) in Krakow, Poland. The talk discussed the role of implicit processes in placebo and nocebo effects.

Congratulations to undergraduate psychology honors student, Sydney Mockensturm, who presented her research on the influence of choice-making on the placebo effect at the 5th International Conference of the Society for Interdisciplinary Placebo Studies (SIPS).

Graduate student Michael Vang has published his undergraduate independent research project from UC Merced, titled "Examining the causal role of physicians’ communication goals in patient outcomes." Check out the article at: journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Interested in exploring the influence of social factors on health and treatment-related outcomes? We will be recruiting PhD students to join the Toledo Placebo Lab for Fall 2026! Applications (tinyurl.com/utpsychapply) are due Dec. 1st. Please direct interested undergrads here!

As the semester comes to a close and summer break begins, we want to thank all our undergraduate and graduate students for their hard work and contributions to the lab. Wishing you a wonderful and restful summer!

Undergraduate student Legend Coleman is the recipient of the 2025 Dean's Leadership and Engagement Award at the University of Toledo. This is a great achievement! Congrats, Legend!

Doctoral candidate Emily Spotts was recognized as one of the University of Toledo's Outstanding Graduate Students of the Year for her recent scholarly contributions. Congratulations, Emily!

Research assistant Sydney Mockensturm received a summer research grant from the UToledo Office of Undergraduate Researcher for her research project titled "Testing Cognitive Dissonance, Control, and Confidence as Mediators for Treatment Choice on Placebo Eye Fatigue Outcomes."

Graduate student Emily Spotts published her article with Dr. Geers titled “The effect of attribute framing on beliefs and attitudes toward branded and generic medications.” in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine. link.springer.com/article/10.1... Congrats!

Graduate student Sam Mayer successfully defended her thesis titled "Examining the Relationship Between PTSD Symptomatology and Nocebo Effects". Congrats, Sam!!

Graduate student Michael Vang has published one of his undergraduate research projects he worked on titled "Health Regulatory Focus and College Student Outcomes Following Healthcare Visits" Check out the article at: doi.org/10.1080/0744...

Undergraduate student Sydney Mockensturm was awarded a travel grant by the Undergraduate Research office at the University of Toledo to attend 2025 Society for Interdisciplinary Placebo Studies in Poland! Congrats Syndey!

Undergraduate researcher Legend Coleman has been working as a Direct Support Professional at Bittersweet Farms, a farmstead-based in Whitehouse, Ohio that provides vocational, transitional, and recreational services to individuals with autism.