  "Nocebos" and WebMD disease  Bookmark and Share Tuesday, Nov
25, 2008  One of my hypotheses is that consumer behavior is
anchored in the placebo effect, and advertising serves the vital
function of supplying the mind with material to work with, just
enough to make belief plausible enough to achieve desirable
effects. We just have to grant ads the authority we give to
actual experts, like doctors. It seems as though we do this
readily, without much profound consideration of what should
constitute actual expertise. (I’m supposed to buy a certain kind
of tea because Dodgers manager Joe Torre drinks it.) We are
basically culpable in our being seduced by ads; we’re not
somehow tricked into belief against our will. It’s beneficial to
believe, because it promises us placebo magic. Skepticism can
turn out to be a costly failure of imagination, especially when
we just need to imagine we can feel better to actually achieve
it.  Consumerism supplies imaginary solutions to problems that
marketing has convinced us to re