Genetic placebo effect on psychological resilience_the moderating role of self-compassion

The genetic placebo effect comprises the gene-related psychological, physiological and behavioral changes resulting from merely receiving genetic information. Although previous studies have found a genetic placebo effect resulting from fake genetic feedback, it is unclear whether the genetic placebo effect can occur independent of actual genetic dispositions and whether the genetic placebo effect varies across participants. Our research aimed to address this gap by testing the genetic placebo effect on psychological resilience when taking the impact of genes into consideration and investigating the moderating effect of self-compassion on the genetic placebo effect. Experiment 1 contained two groups of participants, a before-feedback group and an after-feedback group, whose psychological resilience was measured before (after) receiving genetic feedback about psychological resilience. We observed a weak genetic placebo effect independent of the impact of genes, indexed by the higher correlation between the genetic score and psychological resilience score in the after-feedback group. Moreover, self-compassion moderated the genetic placebo effect, and the participants with higher self-compassion were more sensitive to genetic feedback. These findings were replicated in experiment 2, in which we randomly gave genetic feedback to participants, reporting genetic predispositions of high or low psychological resilience. Our research enhanced the ecological validity of the genetic placebo effect and brought us insights into the use of genetic testing and feedback.