معرفی
Dr. Kate Faasse is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology within the Faculty of Science at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). She earned her PhD in Health Psychology from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and has established herself as a leading researcher in the field of psychological factors affecting health outcomes.
Dr. Faasse's research primarily focuses on the nocebo effect - what she describes as 'the dark side of the placebo effect' - where negative expectations can cause unpleasant side effects. Her work explores how these effects form and how they can be prevented. More broadly, she investigates psychological and social factors that influence health and treatment beliefs and outcomes, with the goal of better understanding mind-body connections in treatment responses.
Her recent research spans multiple projects examining nocebo effects, open-label placebo effects (where placebos work even when patients know they're taking them), generic medicines, explicit and implicit treatment expectations, Breast Implant Illness, health misinformation, and the role of social media in health beliefs. Her methodological approach is flexible, incorporating laboratory-based experiments, naturalistic social media analyses, and quasi-experimental methods.
Dr. Faasse maintains an active publication record with numerous articles in high-impact journals across psychology, medicine, and health sciences. Her work demonstrates consistent focus on how psychological factors shape physical health experiences and treatment outcomes.
She has shared her expertise publicly, including a talk at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas where she discussed how the nocebo effect might explain more than half of medical side effects, suggesting many negative reactions could potentially be overcome through psychological interventions.
