Dan Ariely

Dan Ariely is the Alfred P Sloan Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University, and he researches irrationality. Part of this research has included the powerful effect placebos can play in our healing.

After spending time as a burn patient himself, Dan was amazed at how patients, screaming in pain but who had exhausted their daily allowance of pain killers, would fall into a peaceful sleep after thinking that the injection they had just been given was pain medication, when in fact it was only saline.