What Are the Ethical Issues of Caregivers Giving Up Placebos?

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Kyle Taylor asked, I'm just going to paraphrase this. Authority is a powerful effect and group think also play into the placebo effect. The more people that are on board with what this authority figure is saying, the more likely you're going to believe it too. It really does matter how the experiment in that, in that situation would be framed.

How powerful is the placebo effect? After a good night’s sleep could a scientist convince you that you had tossed and turned, and if so, how would that affect your perceptions and behavior? What if a doctor told you that you had slept like a baby when in reality you had barely slept at all? Would hearing those words improve your performance on a difficult test?

In this episode we learn the answers to these questions and more as we explore how research continues to unravel the mysteries behind the placebo effect and how it can drastically alter our bodies and minds.

Our guest is Kristi Erdal, a psychologist at Colorado College who discovered placebo sleep along with one of her students, Christina Draganich. Draganich wondered if such a thing might exist after reading all the literature on placebos, and Erdal helped her create the research methods she used to test her hypothesis.

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