On your reaction to “a way to reject the placebo effect”, it’s important to distinguish what we are trying to do. If all I care about is fixing a given problem for myself, I don’t care whether I solve it by placebo effect or by a repeatable hack.
If I care about figuring out how my brain works, then I will need a way to reject or identify the placebo effect.
You also need to avoid placebo effects if you want the hack to be repeatable (if you run into a similar problem again), generalizable (to work on a wider class of problems), or reliable.
If all I care about is fixing a given problem for myself, I don’t care whether I solve it by placebo effect or by a repeatable hack.
Actually, it is important to separate certain kinds of placebo effects. The reason I use somatic marker testing in my work is to replace vague “I think I feel better”‘s with “Ah! I’m responding differently to that stimulus now”’s.
Technically, “I think I feel better” isn’t really a placebo effect; it’s just vagueness and confusion. The “real” placebo effect is just acting as if a certain premise were true (e.g. “this pill will make me better”).
In that sense, affirmations, LoA, and hypnosis are explicit applications of the same principle, in that they attempt to set up the relevant expectation(s) directly.
Similarly, Eliezer’s “count to 10 and get up” trick is also a “placebo effect”, in that it operates by setting up the expectation that, “after I count to 10, I’m going to get up”.
In that sense, affirmations, LoA, and hypnosis are explicit applications of the same principle, in that they attempt to set up the relevant expectation(s) directly.
An fMRI will tell you something different.
Similarly, Eliezer’s “count to 10 and get up” trick is also a “placebo effect”, in that it operates by setting up the expectation that, “after I count to 10, I’m going to get up”.
Really? There’s a study where they compared those three things? And they controlled for whether the participants were actually any good at producing results with affirmations or LoA? If so, I’d love to read it.
Really? There’s a study where they compared those three things? And they controlled for whether the participants were actually any good at producing results with affirmations or LoA? If so, I’d love to read it.
A study Two of the four would be sufficient to refute your claim that the three listed are each applications of the the same principle as the placebo pill you compared them to. The studies need not be controlled by skill, they may be controlled by the actual measured effectiveness of the outcomes. If you are interested, you may begin your research here.
How do you figure that?
You arbitrarily redefined what the “real placebo effect” is to your own convenience and then casually applied it to something that is not a placebo effect. Don’t make me speak latin in a Scottish accent.
You arbitrarily redefined what the “real placebo effect” is to your own convenience and then casually applied it to something that is not a placebo effect.
The physiological effect of a placebo depends upon its suggested or anticipated action. A placebo described as a muscle relaxant will cause muscle relaxation and if the opposite, muscle tension.[75] A placebo presented as a stimulant will have this effect on heart rhythm, and blood pressure, but when administered as a depressant, the opposite effect.[76]
Related to this power of expectation is the person’s belief that the treatment that they are taking is real: in both those taking real drugs and those taking placebos, those people who believe they are taking the real treatment (whether they in fact are or not) show a stronger effect, and vice versa, those who think they are taking the placebo (whether they are or not) a lesser one.
Taboo the phrase “placebo effect”, please. That term was coined to refer to psychological effects intruding on non-psychological studies. When the goal is to achieve a psychological effect, it becomes meaningless or misleading.
Taboo the phrase “placebo effect”, please. That term was coined to refer to psychological effects intruding on non-psychological studies. When the goal is to achieve a psychological effect, it becomes meaningless or misleading.
You should probably read the earlier part of the thread, where I distinguished between what might be called “uncertainty effect” (thinking you’re getting better, when you’re not) and “expectation effect”, where an expectation of success (or failure) actually leads to behavior change. This latter effect is functionally indistinguishable from the standard placebo effect, and is very likely to be the exact same thing.
As you point out, we want expectation effects to occur. Affirmations, LoA, and hypnosis are all examples of methods specifically aimed at creating intentional expectation effects, but any method can of course produce them unintentionally.
The main difference between expectation effect and “placebo classic” is that placebo classic loses its effect when somebody discovers that it’s a placebo… well, actually that’s still just another expectation effect, since people who take a real drug and think it’s a placebo also react to it less.
Everything we know about human beings points to expectation effects being incredibly powerful, but it seems relatively little research is devoted to properly exploiting this. Perhaps it’s too useful to be considered high status, or perhaps not “serious enough”.
On your reaction to “a way to reject the placebo effect”, it’s important to distinguish what we are trying to do. If all I care about is fixing a given problem for myself, I don’t care whether I solve it by placebo effect or by a repeatable hack.
If I care about figuring out how my brain works, then I will need a way to reject or identify the placebo effect.
You also need to avoid placebo effects if you want the hack to be repeatable (if you run into a similar problem again), generalizable (to work on a wider class of problems), or reliable.
Actually, it is important to separate certain kinds of placebo effects. The reason I use somatic marker testing in my work is to replace vague “I think I feel better”‘s with “Ah! I’m responding differently to that stimulus now”’s.
Technically, “I think I feel better” isn’t really a placebo effect; it’s just vagueness and confusion. The “real” placebo effect is just acting as if a certain premise were true (e.g. “this pill will make me better”).
In that sense, affirmations, LoA, and hypnosis are explicit applications of the same principle, in that they attempt to set up the relevant expectation(s) directly.
Similarly, Eliezer’s “count to 10 and get up” trick is also a “placebo effect”, in that it operates by setting up the expectation that, “after I count to 10, I’m going to get up”.
An fMRI will tell you something different.
No it isn’t.
Really? There’s a study where they compared those three things? And they controlled for whether the participants were actually any good at producing results with affirmations or LoA? If so, I’d love to read it.
How do you figure that?
A study Two of the four would be sufficient to refute your claim that the three listed are each applications of the the same principle as the placebo pill you compared them to. The studies need not be controlled by skill, they may be controlled by the actual measured effectiveness of the outcomes. If you are interested, you may begin your research here.
You arbitrarily redefined what the “real placebo effect” is to your own convenience and then casually applied it to something that is not a placebo effect. Don’t make me speak latin in a Scottish accent.
From Wikipedia’s “placebo” page:
So, how am I getting this wrong, exactly?
Taboo the phrase “placebo effect”, please. That term was coined to refer to psychological effects intruding on non-psychological studies. When the goal is to achieve a psychological effect, it becomes meaningless or misleading.
You should probably read the earlier part of the thread, where I distinguished between what might be called “uncertainty effect” (thinking you’re getting better, when you’re not) and “expectation effect”, where an expectation of success (or failure) actually leads to behavior change. This latter effect is functionally indistinguishable from the standard placebo effect, and is very likely to be the exact same thing.
As you point out, we want expectation effects to occur. Affirmations, LoA, and hypnosis are all examples of methods specifically aimed at creating intentional expectation effects, but any method can of course produce them unintentionally.
The main difference between expectation effect and “placebo classic” is that placebo classic loses its effect when somebody discovers that it’s a placebo… well, actually that’s still just another expectation effect, since people who take a real drug and think it’s a placebo also react to it less.
Everything we know about human beings points to expectation effects being incredibly powerful, but it seems relatively little research is devoted to properly exploiting this. Perhaps it’s too useful to be considered high status, or perhaps not “serious enough”.
There’s also the question of to what extent the placebo effect is actually meaningful when “causing effects in the mind” is the goal.