The evolutionary psychology of healing: a human success story
PainSci notes on Humphrey 2012:
Refreshingly, this is a perspective on placebo that doesn’t worship the “power” of placebo, but looks instead at the paradox of placebo: if placebo is so ding dang powerful, why isn’t everyone cured? Perhaps because the placebo effect is basically a dysfunctional mistake.
There’s a video about this (Why does the placebo effect work? 
6:01), and here’s some excellent extra reading from Todd Hargrove, who did a nice job interpreting and explaining. The additional perspective is most welcome.
related content
- Why does the placebo effect work? on YouTube.com.
Specifically regarding Humphrey 2012:
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Gabapentinoids and Risk of Hip Fracture. Leung 2024 JAMA Netw Open.
- Classical Conditioning Fails to Elicit Allodynia in an Experimental Study with Healthy Humans. Madden 2017 Pain Med.
- Topical glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) and eccentric exercises in the treatment of mid-portion achilles tendinopathy (the NEAT trial): a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Kirwan 2024 Br J Sports Med.
- Placebo analgesia in physical and psychological interventions: Systematic review and meta-analysis of three-armed trials. Hohenschurz-Schmidt 2024 Eur J Pain.
- Recovery trajectories in common musculoskeletal complaints by diagnosis contra prognostic phenotypes. Aasdahl 2021 BMC Musculoskelet Disord.