Are you sure that “anti placebo effect” is a good name though? The placebo effect refers exclusively to medical treatment if I’m not entirely mistaken, and this seems to have much broader implications in basically any sort of training. It’s still basically the same effect if someone refuses to notice the progress they made with say tutoring, but it has nothing to do with medicine or treatment.
The placebo effect refers exclusively to medical treatment if I’m not entirely mistaken, and this seems to have much broader implications in basically any sort of training.
While the placebo effect is generally defined in a medical context, people rarely throw type errors when you talk about placebos outside of medicine. The Hawthorne Effect is the name that productivity boosts due to observation / novelty / active treatment go by, but it’s seen as similar to if not the same as the placebo effect.
I can affirm that I expected the term to refer to something different, namely an effect that causes people to do worse based on their concerns surrounding an intervention, such as in this study on intercessory prayer, where the individuals who knew they were being prayed for did worse than the other groups, possibly because they were concerned that they were so badly off that they needed people to pray for them.
In the placebo effect, you try something, see results, and believe those results derived from what you tried, when in fact what you tried could not possibly have had any effect whatsoever; the observed results are then attributed to one’s beliefs that the tried thing had the capacity for effecting change.
The above refers to a different phenomenon: one tries something, doesn’t see results, and believes what they tried had no effect, when in fact what they tried did have results.
In the placebo effect, one’s beliefs effect change. In the phenomenon Shannon refers to, change occurs regardless of one’s beliefs.
Interestingly, when I presented the above description of the placebo effect to someone and asked for what they would expect of the opposite, they replied, “Change happens and they don’t believe it.” I would think the term, “Opposite-Placebo Effect” or “Opposite of the Placebo Effect” a better descriptor, as ‘anti-’ implies simple negation rather than a flipping of observed effects.
This could of course just be an issue of differing perspectives on what is or isn’t an intuitive moniker.
Actually the placebo effect is a statistical term covering the entire improvement seen in the placebo branch of a trial. Part of the effect comes from beliefs, yes. But there are other causes. For instance, people tend to enroll in clinical trials when their health is at a local minimum, and reversion to the mean can account for a good chunk of their improvement.
Are you sure that “anti placebo effect” is a good name though? The placebo effect refers exclusively to medical treatment if I’m not entirely mistaken, and this seems to have much broader implications in basically any sort of training. It’s still basically the same effect if someone refuses to notice the progress they made with say tutoring, but it has nothing to do with medicine or treatment.
Seems a bit misleading.
It may be that nocebo has a better claim to being an “anti-placebo effect”.
While the placebo effect is generally defined in a medical context, people rarely throw type errors when you talk about placebos outside of medicine. The Hawthorne Effect is the name that productivity boosts due to observation / novelty / active treatment go by, but it’s seen as similar to if not the same as the placebo effect.
I can affirm that I expected the term to refer to something different, namely an effect that causes people to do worse based on their concerns surrounding an intervention, such as in this study on intercessory prayer, where the individuals who knew they were being prayed for did worse than the other groups, possibly because they were concerned that they were so badly off that they needed people to pray for them.
Maybe Nocebo?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocebo
Here’s my answer to that: http://lesswrong.com/lw/iqr/the_antiplacebo_effect/9tiw
In the placebo effect, you try something, see results, and believe those results derived from what you tried, when in fact what you tried could not possibly have had any effect whatsoever; the observed results are then attributed to one’s beliefs that the tried thing had the capacity for effecting change.
The above refers to a different phenomenon: one tries something, doesn’t see results, and believes what they tried had no effect, when in fact what they tried did have results.
In the placebo effect, one’s beliefs effect change. In the phenomenon Shannon refers to, change occurs regardless of one’s beliefs.
Interestingly, when I presented the above description of the placebo effect to someone and asked for what they would expect of the opposite, they replied, “Change happens and they don’t believe it.” I would think the term, “Opposite-Placebo Effect” or “Opposite of the Placebo Effect” a better descriptor, as ‘anti-’ implies simple negation rather than a flipping of observed effects.
This could of course just be an issue of differing perspectives on what is or isn’t an intuitive moniker.
Actually the placebo effect is a statistical term covering the entire improvement seen in the placebo branch of a trial. Part of the effect comes from beliefs, yes. But there are other causes. For instance, people tend to enroll in clinical trials when their health is at a local minimum, and reversion to the mean can account for a good chunk of their improvement.
I didn’t know this, and if there are other instances, would like to know all of them. Thank you!