I Love This Cookie. It's Got Scott. Okay, Okay. Okay.

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A study says that we tend to like artists more if we perceive those artists as being idiosyncratic. In the article, Tom Jacobs talks about how a research team led by psychologist Whenyad Van Attilberg said eccentricity of artists boosts appreciation of their art. If you think Salvador Dali is actually a weird person at heart, then this effect does not work,. But if you think that an artist conforms to a widely held stereotype that creative geniuses are peculiar people, increases the perception that that artist is gifted.

How powerful is the placebo effect? After a good night’s sleep could a scientist convince you that you had tossed and turned, and if so, how would that affect your perceptions and behavior? What if a doctor told you that you had slept like a baby when in reality you had barely slept at all? Would hearing those words improve your performance on a difficult test?

In this episode we learn the answers to these questions and more as we explore how research continues to unravel the mysteries behind the placebo effect and how it can drastically alter our bodies and minds.

Our guest is Kristi Erdal, a psychologist at Colorado College who discovered placebo sleep along with one of her students, Christina Draganich. Draganich wondered if such a thing might exist after reading all the literature on placebos, and Erdal helped her create the research methods she used to test her hypothesis.

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