Trust Game and Placebo Response

Trust Game and Placebo Response

In the proposed study, investigators aim to investigate the role of interpersonal trust in the conditioned placebo analgesia process with healthy male subjects in a standardized experimental heat pain paradigm.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Men: age between 18 and 40 years old
• Healthy by self-report statement, thus no known current or chronic somatic diseases or psychiatric disorders
• Right-handedness (Oldfield, 1971)
• Willing to participate in study

Exclusion Criteria:

• Any acute or chronic disease (chronic pain, hypertension, heart disease, renal disease, liver disease, diabetes) as well as skin pathologies, neuropathies or nerve entrapment symptoms, sensory abnormalities affecting the tactile or thermal modality
• Current medications (psychoactive medication, narcotics, intake of analgesics) or being currently in psychological or psychiatric treatment
• Insufficient German language skills to understand the instructions
• Previous participation in studies using pain assessment (threshold and tolerance) with Peltier Devices
• Daily consumption of more than three alcoholic standard beverages per day (a standard alcoholic beverage is defined as either 3dl beer or 1 dl wine or 2cl spirits
• Current or regular drug consumption (THC, cocaine, heroin, etc.)