Nocebo
It's the placebo's evil twin. This is from a Melinda Beck column in the Wall Street Journal:
Women in the multi-decade Framingham Heart study who thought they were at risk for heart attacks were 3.7 times as likely to die of coronary conditions as women who didn't have such fears….in one 1960s test, when hospital patients were given sugar water and told it would make them vomit, 80% of them did.
I wonder if nocebos could be used in euthanasia. It would certainly lower the cost.
Joe, what a morbid idea.