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Expensive placebos more effective than cheap placebos

 
 
 
I recall reading a study back in my pharmaceutical company days that showed that while SSRIs were better than placebo for treating mild to moderate depression, they were no better than an 'enhanced' placebo, that was formulated to cause mild nausea, mimicking the side-effects of the active capsules.

So placebos that make you feel unwell are more effective at making you feel well than placebos that do nothing at all; and are equally effective anti-depressants as Fluoxetine (Prozac), except in the most severe cases.

I will have to see if I can find the study online...
 
skepticalbip said:
Expensive placebos more effective than cheap placebos
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Of course they are. This seems to be just another confirmation of the Chivas Regal effect.
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May be, at least in part...see, e.g.:

Marketing actions can modulate neural representations of experienced pleasantness

Abstract
Despite the importance and pervasiveness of marketing, almost nothing is known about the neural mechanisms through which it affects decisions made by individuals. We propose that marketing actions, such as changes in the price of a product, can affect neural representations of experienced pleasantness. We tested this hypothesis by scanning human subjects using functional MRI while they tasted wines that, contrary to reality, they believed to be different and sold at different prices. Our results show that increasing the price of a wine increases subjective reports of flavor pleasantness as well as blood-oxygen-level-dependent activity in medial orbitofrontal cortex, an area that is widely thought to encode for experienced pleasantness during experiential tasks. The paper provides evidence for the ability of marketing actions to modulate neural correlates of experienced pleasantness and for the mechanisms through which the effect operates.
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I wish placebo effect was more effective, because all I want is less pain.

I have always heard that Oxycontin and Vicodin were the bomb when it came to pain relief. I know people who will pay $20 a pill, just to keep some in their system. Of course, they have chronic back pain, or something. The stuff does nothing for me, at least in the prescribed dosage. I've been through broken bones and lacerations and infections, with minimal relief from the dynamic duo of pain killers.

My last adventure into agony was a root canal procedure. My dentist prescribed antibiotics and Oxycontin to tide me over, with little escape from the pain. The endodontist had a different remedy. He said take 1000mg of Tylenol and 600 mg of Ibuprofen. I didn't have much faith in this cocktail, but in less than 10 minutes, I did not remember having all four roots of my lower molar reamed out and packed with cement.

There is always the desire to believe what we expend to obtain something is worth what we receive. I know people who buy a tank of premium fuel about once a month, in the belief it is good for their car.
 
Elixir said:
fromderinside said:
Naw. We just value value.
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Value =/= cost

ETA: Or does it?
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Apparently the increase in effect is correlated not to price but to relative price ($1,500 v. $100 "drugs").

It would be interesting to see if rich people are any less subject to the placebo effect, or to the differential in the price tag.

Anyway, sounds crazy.
EB
 
skepticalbip said:
Of course they are. This seems to be just another confirmation of the Chivas Regal effect.
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Or the expensive wine effect. Or the Ketal One effect.

Once you are above rot gut status the quality is about the same across the board the taste is down to personal preference for subtle flavor differences. But time and time again people will rate their enjoyment higher when they think they are drinking the liquid that has more cache or that is more expensive relative to other stuff. Some of the best tequila that I've had was some stuff in a very plain bottle that I picked up at a clearance sale when I was in San Francisco. It was 100% agave reposado but it was some brand that I don't think I've seen outside California. I think I paid $25 for two 750ml bottles that I brought home with me. Tried to feed the stuff to a friend and they turned their nose up claiming that 1800 was the only way to go (or whatever brand it was that had adds plastered all over every skin magazine in existence). Find another test subject and tell them that it was some super expensive limited release shit only available in California and they rave over it.

It can work the other way too. I'm a cheap skate. I think I tend to overrate something on which I think I've gotten a deal, like some cheapshit tequila from a clearance rack.

I wonder if there's an anti-placedo effect to be suffered by skeptics? Maybe on perception. But skepticism never kept Cephalexin from killing vulnerable strains of bacteria.
 
Placebo effects occur at a sub-conscious level where deliberate reasoning and conscious beliefs have little impact. They operate at the level of pavlovian learned associations resulting from covarying features in what we experience.
Few people experience the extremes of cost at which little of the cost is tied to actual quality. Most of our experiences are with a $1 McD burger versus a $10 burger at a quality restaurant, or $10 K-mart sneakers that disintegrate in 6 months versus $70 shoes that last years, etc.
There is at least a modest correlation between cost and quality/effectiveness in much of what most people are exposed to. The correlation does not need to be perfect. If it is even a .30 correlation, then it means that on average more cost will mean more quality more often than not.
It may be less true with drugs, but our brains operate more on generalities than specifics. I am often the first to call people morons, but reacting to actual predictive covariances in the world, however imperfect, is much less moronic than the many beliefs that are completely divorced from reality.
 
Mageth said:
Malintent said:
Value = Gain - Cost
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I thought that was net, or profit. Is that the same as value? Or are terms getting used in different ways?
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So well being could be termed profit independent of money or something else of transferable value?

I'm sticking with "we just value value". Using any term that reflects transfer from one to another changes the discussion.

- - - Updated - - -

Speakpigeon said:
Elixir said:
Value =/= cost

ETA: Or does it?
Click to expand...
Apparently the increase in effect is correlated not to price but to relative price ($1,500 v. $100 "drugs").

It would be interesting to see if rich people are any less subject to the placebo effect, or to the differential in the price tag.

Anyway, sounds crazy.
EB
Click to expand...

RE: above

See!
 
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