The Placebo Effect

According to H.K Beecher the placebo effect is the outcome of feeling cured, better or actually being cured with just believing you would get cured or better. Confusing isn’t it? Well let me explain you with an example, a person is feeling ill, a doctor very convincingly gives her a pill that medically speaking makes no difference or treats the illness, but she or he are convinced it does. The person gets much better and feels healthier, this is the placebo effect. The patient’s symptoms were alleviated by an ineffective treatment. It is said that all medication includes the placebo effect since the patient is receiving the treatment but are also convinced the treatment works. Placebo is proven to work on 35 percent of 1082patients according to H.K Beecher study. Doctors all over the word have used this for centuries. Some researchers say that the placebo effect may involve conditioned response which is a learned response to a stimulus that previously had no meaning. We have learned that medicine makes us feel better and cures us when we are sick. So any treatment we receive makes us psychologically believe this. Other research has shown that conditional response provides stimulus that releases endorphins in the brain. Endorphins are the body’s own pain killers. There are many types of experiments that show many types of different results but most if not all show positive results for placebos. Some problems of these studies is the amount of deception used in the experiment and also the type of placebo such as surgery or medication.

http://www.ukskeptics.com/explanation.php?dir=articles/explanations&article=placebo_effect.php

http://health.howstuffworks.com/medicine/medication/placebo-effect.htm

The Halo Effect by Solomon Asch

The Halo Effect is a classic finding of social psychology. A Halo is a luminous disk or ring of light on top of a person’s head that represent goodness, sort of that of an angel. That is why it is called the “Halo” Effect; it resembles the positive attributes and qualities in an individual. It is when we assume a person’s general traits are positive by observing a single trait which we find appealing. This one trait leads to the formation of an overall opinion of a person. Have you heard the phrase “Don’t judge a book by its cover”? In the Halo Effect people do exactly the opposite of what the phrase tells us not to do. We judge a person by the way he looks, speaks, thinks or other important qualities that may or may not reflect who the person is or their abilities and capacities. We believe an individual to have many positive attributes because the assumption that the individual has a positive significant trait. Opposite to the Halo Effect comes the “Devil Effect”, also known as the “Horn Effect”. It is when it is assumed that a person has general negative traits when we believe that the person has a negative critical trait.
Have you noticed that most of the advertisements have good looking individuals? Of course it is not coincidence, the advertisers are trying to sell their product as best as they can. Usually it illustrates the attractive people using the product, saying they have used it, or recommending it. They use the Halo Effect on us considering that we see them as attractive people so we assume them to have other positive traits that also may resemble the product and its effectiveness. For example, an advertisement about toothpaste is shown on T.V, an attractive actor is dressed as a dentist is shown explaining how the toothpaste works and why it works, afterwards he recommends that toothpaste to the viewers and approves it works. Since the dentist is attractive we assume many qualities such as intelligence and honesty. We assume he knows the product works and that he is not lying, therefore we think the product will work and we buy it. Although the Halo Effect is good for the advertisements, many people are negatively affected because of this. A boss can assume that an employee could not be good for his business by the way he looks or dresses. It could cost the employees job. So something that we must always remember, always look the best you can.

http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/10/halo-effect-when-your-own-mind-is.php
http://www.envisionsoftware.com/articles/Halo_Effect.html