معرفی
Andrew Geers is a Professor in the Experimental Psychology - Social department at the University of Toledo, with his office located in University Hall, Room 6524. He maintains an active research profile with current contact information and ongoing NIH/ARC-funded projects.
He earned his Ph.D. from Ohio University in 2001, establishing his academic foundation in experimental psychology.
Dr. Geers' research centers on psychological mechanisms of health behavior, specifically examining how expectations, social communication, and affective processes influence placebo/nocebo responses, drug side effects, and health belief formation. His work bridges clinical applications with fundamental social-cognitive principles, particularly investigating how verbal suggestions and framing techniques modulate physical symptom experiences.
Analysis of his 15 most recent publications (2018-2025) reveals a dominant focus on nocebo phenomena in medical contexts, with substantial attention to vaccine side effects, dental fear interventions, and pain management. His methodological approach combines experimental paradigms, population surveys, and clinical protocols to dissect how social transmission, information framing, and affective states generate adverse treatment expectations.
Dr. Geers currently leads or collaborates on five major research grants totaling over $6 million, including NIH R01 funding for dental fear mechanisms ($1.28M), ARC Discovery Projects on nocebo effects of generic medicines ($328K) and socially-induced nocebo responses ($349K), and a substantial NIH UG3 grant ($4.27M) for youth dental phobia treatment in underserved populations.
He directs the InSPHIRe Lab (Implicit and Social Processes in Health and Illness Research), which employs interdisciplinary approaches to investigate psychological pathways between cognition, emotion, and physical health outcomes through controlled experiments and clinical applications.
