A new study reveals why highly educated Thais can be vulnerable to dangerous wellness trends, and how understanding personality helps protect public health in a digital age.
In Bangkok’s trendy studios and Chiang Mai’s retreat spaces, professionals chase the latest wellness practices. From elaborate juice cleanses to unproven supplements, Thailand’s rising middle class shows a strong appetite for health innovation. Yet a troubling pattern emerges: even the well educated can fall for misinformation that shifts from mild trends to risky practices.
Research published in The Conversation explains why education alone doesn’t shield people from wellness misinformation. It identifies personality traits that make highly intelligent individuals susceptible to wellness fads, offering guidance relevant to Thailand where social media wellness culture intersects with traditional health beliefs and modern life pressures.
The Psychology of Wellness Susceptibility
Across international psychology research, two Big Five traits predict who adopts wellness trends: openness to experience and agreeableness. Open individuals crave novelty, question authorities, and seek unconventional experiences. In Thailand, this translates to enthusiasm for innovative wellness methods that promise transformation beyond conventional medicine.
Agreeable individuals prioritize social harmony, trust community recommendations, and respond to personal stories. They value group belonging and tend to accept advice from trusted, authentic sources. Thai culture’s emphasis on collective wellbeing strengthens these tendencies.
The risky mix happens when wellness creators combine curiosity with belonging, hitting the sweet spot for both open and agreeable personalities.
Thailand’s Perfect Storm: Culture, Technology, and Personality
Thailand’s cultural landscape—its Buddhist heritage and tradition of holistic health—can make unconventional claims feel culturally familiar. Social media accelerates the spread, with millions of Thais active on platforms, many of them urban professionals in the prime target for sophisticated wellness marketing.
A real-world example shows how the dynamic works: a Bangkok professional with an MBA gradually adopts extreme wellness practices after following charismatic influencers. What begins as mild routines can escalate into costly supplement regimens and dangerous fasting programs that require medical intervention. This illustrates the “gateway effect” researchers describe: initial engagement with mild trends can normalize more extreme practices as trust grows.
The Misinformation Ecosystem: How Influencers Exploit Psychology
Thai wellness influencers use targeted tactics that appeal to open and agreeable personalities:
- Novelty and Exclusivity: Claims of cutting-edge discoveries that conventional medicine allegedly ignores.
- Community and Belonging: Messages about joining enlightened wellness networks.
- Personal Transformation Stories: Emotional narratives that foster parasocial bonds and openness to future recommendations.
- Scientific-Sounding Language: Well-crafted terminology and cherry-picked data give the impression of credibility.
The Thai Context: Traditional Medicine Meets Digital Misinformation
Thailand’s heritage of herbal medicine, massage, and mindfulness adds legitimacy to wellness claims, which unscrupulously blend ancient practices with modern fads. Some influencers blur lines between evidence-based traditional care and unproven trends, invoking local knowledge to legitimize products and retreats. This can particularly affect highly agreeable individuals who see value in preserving cultural traditions while being exposed to marketing that exploits them.
Digital Health Literacy: An Educational Challenge
Traditional health education often fails to address personality-driven susceptibility. High-open individuals may resist static, dogmatic materials, while highly agreeable people may accept misinformation if it comes from trusted social sources. Thailand needs digital health literacy programs that teach critical thinking while respecting cultural values and personality differences.
Evidence-Based Solutions for Thai Public Health
Recent research highlights the role of healthcare professionals who use digital platforms to promote evidence-based information and counter misinformation. These professionals can create engaging, credible content that satisfies curiosity about health innovation while staying scientifically accurate. Thailand’s health institutions can scale this by training professionals to communicate effectively on social media, offering credible alternatives to wellness misinformation.
Practical Strategies for Individuals and Families
- High-Openness: Seek legitimate scientific sources. Follow researchers and clinicians who present findings in engaging formats. Set clear criteria to evaluate novel claims before encountering marketing.
- High-Agreeableness: Identify trusted healthcare professionals within your network. Use a formal decision-making process that involves multiple opinions. Practice pausing to research before adopting new practices.
- For Everyone: Learn to recognize manipulation tactics. A sense of connection with an influencer isn’t evidence of medical validity. Create cooling-off periods before acting on wellness claims.
Institutional Responses for Thailand
- Healthcare: Integrate digital health communication into medical training. Encourage non-judgmental, evidence-based conversations about wellness trends.
- Education: Embed psychology-informed digital literacy into curricula, emphasizing critical thinking and peer discussion.
- Regulation: Require clear disclosures for influencer compensation and establish consequences for promoting dangerous practices, while supporting legitimate wellness innovation and traditional care.
The Role of Buddhist Values in Health Decision-Making
Thai Buddhist ethics—moderation, mindful decision-making, and care for others—provide a framework for assessing health claims. Public health campaigns can frame evidence-based practices as expressions of compassion, aligning with community values and encouraging careful evaluation of new ideas.
Technology Solutions and Platform Responsibility
With deep social media use, platforms can help curb misinformation by:
- Adjusting algorithms to reduce unsubstantiated health claims and promote verified medical sources
- Implementing context warnings for unverified health content
- Providing user education tools to recognize misinformation tactics
Community-Based Prevention
Village leaders, temple networks, and neighborhood groups can share accurate health information in culturally sensitive ways. Training these community figures helps align health guidance with local beliefs and trust networks.
Research Priorities for Thai Scientists
- Cultural adaptation studies: Examine how Thai values influence the effectiveness of personality-informed health communication.
- Intervention development: Create Thai-specific health literacy programs that fit language, culture, and media habits.
- Longitudinal tracking: Monitor how wellness trend adoption evolves over time to identify intervention points.
Economic and Social Implications
Wellness misinformation imposes costs on healthcare systems and workers and can erode trust in legitimate medical guidance. It also creates unfair competition for regulated practitioners and promotes unnecessary practices that burden households.
Building Resilience Through Understanding
Understanding how personality traits interact with marketing psychology enables better personal protection. Open individuals can pursue legitimate innovation with strict evaluation, while agreeable people can maintain community ties and better assess credibility.
The Path Forward
Thailand stands at a pivotal moment. Combining a strong traditional health heritage with rapid digital growth offers both opportunities and risks. A coordinated approach—skilled healthcare communicators, psychology-informed education, thoughtful regulation, and platform responsibility—can help Thais navigate wellness information safely.
Key takeaway: Even educated people aren’t immune to health misinformation. Recognizing personality-driven vulnerabilities enables smarter public health responses and more effective individual decision-making.