The Power of the Placebo Effect

This study’s demonstration of the power of the placebo may also shed light as to why some people truly believe and claim alternative forms of medicine are effective, even when they have been scientifically proven to be ineffective. Today’s world is filled with famous alternative forms of medicine and treatment, all of which have been debunked over and over by scientists. There are magnet therapists who claim that pain is caused by the iron in the blood, exorcists who claim it is caused by being possessed by a devil, and chiropractors who claim it is due to the back bone, even if the pain nowhere near the backbone. Even though such theories truly make no sense and are not supported by any empirical scientific evidence, practitioners of these theories still manage to gather a large number of believers. One logical and scientifically supported explanation for this popularity is because of the placebo effect. If these patients truly believe that they are being treated with the right medicine, they will feel better. After all, pain, depression, and so many different illnesses are all in the mind. Over time, such illnesses may naturally go away, but the patients will attribute the disappearance of symptoms to the alternative medicines. This increases their confidence in these alternative medicines, and the profit of the false doctors (Butler 74-95).

If this study was to be repeated again, it would be in the form of an experiment. There would be a control group who would actually be told to drink the real water and not tap water in different bottles. Then, there would be a treatment group that would drink the fancy tap water. In such a case, a cause-and-effect relationship could be established. Even though placebos usually serve as the control group, the purpose of this experiment would be to measure the effect of the placebo, not the effect of the actual bottles of water.

Furthermore, there would be more subjects so that the results can be more effectively generalized. It would be good if the subjects could be selected from a simple random sample despite how unreasonable that is because then, the results could be better generalized. There was also a confounding variable: it was not known whether or not the participants experienced the placebo effect as a result of hearing what the experimenter said and expecting to taste what the experimenter said or expecting the taste that they had always received from past experience, or even both. Such confounding variables would be eliminated next time by either saying nothing and having the participants drink out of those familiar bottles or by presenting the participants with brands they had never heard of and then suggesting the taste of the brands through words. A last major bias in this study was that even though the participants were told not to talk to each other, their facial expressions were still visible for the other participants to see. Such facial expressions associated with a good or bad taste may influence the decisions of the fellow participants. It would be much wiser to test each subject separately and alone.