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Placeboz (mander.xyz)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 106 points 7 months ago (4 children)

The funny thing is that the "extra strength" placebos likely have a better chance of working. The more elaborate and involved the placebo is, the greater the chance of it actually working even if you know it is a placebo. Our minds are weird. As always, I'm too lazy to look up the actual study so I don't know if it was a quality study or not.

[–] Aceticon 15 points 7 months ago

Somebody from Behavioural Economics has actually shown a nocebo effect for something with genuine positive health effects when people tought it was an ultra cheap version.

The story of that is in one of the Freakonomics books.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

But you also might get more nocebos where you get negative effects from the placebo

[–] blanketswithsmallpox 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Trick yourself better you rube.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

Gaslight yourself to health

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

This reminded me of an episode of Mind Field, which shows significant improvent in cases of ADHD, Migraines, and a skin picking disorder in kids just through the placebo effect.

They use elaborate set ups and suggestions like a turned off MRI machine, fake nurses and doctors in lab coats, etc. And the kids are actually told, that it's their brain doing the healing, not the machine.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I believe it's red placebos that are better at helping with pain.

The brain is a fucky old thing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

It's been a while since I looked at this, but different color pills "work" better for different ailments. Also the size and numbers of pills effect results as well. Two pills are "stronger" than one, bigger pills over smaller as well.