Got my placebo back
Feb
25
Finally, after a long time I got a new placebo — thanks to my mother.
What a relief…
19 Comments to “Got my placebo back”
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Hi, I’m Dan Ariely. I do research in behavioral economics and try to describe it in plain language. These findings have enriched my life, and my hope is that they will do the same for you.
My latest book, The Upside of Irrationality, explores some positive and some negative ways that irrationality plays out in our lives.
When we make decisions we think we're in control. But are we?
Excerpts and Videos
Haha, excellent! My mom send me the same.
Dan,
You crack me up! Thanks…
Leadership Freak
Dan Rockwell
Recent blog: Go with Average Joe
http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/go-with-average-joe/
I think I know the what the sublingual placebo that replaced your fizzy placebo is. (No names used to preserve the placebo effect.) The “active” ingredient is interesting.
That’s homeopathic remedy [0], right? And it’s very sweet because that is suppose to be sugar with a solution of the remedy.
I took stuff like that. I knew it was placebo. Made me feel good.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy
Hi Dan, first let me thank you for writing this beatiful book (PI).
I would like to suggest an interesting case: creditgrades.com provides investors with state-of-the-art technology for assessing credit risk (based on a Nobel Prize Model); it offered this service for more than 5 years for free and then… suddenly the same service has been on a subscription basis since last autumn. Interesting, we relied so much on it that we became addicted. Now you have to pay for it you cannot help. Thanks.
^^ Make sure this time no one takes the new placebo away from you!
My mom loves airborne, and always gives it to me and her other children when she’s concerned about sickness going around. I’m not going to tell her it doesn’t really work though, since I am confident that it is effective by placebo effect. As for myself…I have turned to echinacea and garlic recently. Two other great placebos (?) to try.
Does it taste different now that its known it doesn’t work?
It made from people!!!
Actually duck livers…but hey whatever…
I wonder how long Airborne goes from patent medicine and just give up and becomes an energy drink?
All that I needed to make me feel better this morning was watching your video. Thanks!
It’s Moscovy duck hearts and livers diluted 100^200. And the method they use is to pour out half the solution, then replace with water. And they pour this SUPER SUPER diluted solution on those small sugar balls… Analogy: I wash out my coffee cup a hundred times, then somehow I still have “coffee”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscillococcinum
If you read the FAQ on the Oscillococcinum website after reading the Wikipedia article, you’ll be a lot more skeptical.
Hey Dan,
I totally missed the airborne article. Had you not popped my placebo bubble, I could have still been happily placeboing along.
I finally saw your article on TED. So I’ll be hanging around the blog more, and then checking out your book.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/a-hands-heater/id354947589?mt=8
Could be placebo, sarcasm or stupidity…
Good stuff, really enjoyed the video and also your TED talk. Just added the blog to my RSS reader. Thanks.
Hi Dan,
So glad you got your placebo back (it looks so much more appetizing!). In PI, you’ve proved that more expensive placebos work better. My boyfriend suggested an experiment where you look at whether rarer placebos work better too. Is the fact that this placebo is French and is (potentially)rarer make it more effective? What do you think?
Dan,
After watching the video it made me think of two products, one fairly new and one older. First, Emergen C a vitamin C powder products you mix in water and it fizzes! (much like process of taking Airborne) The older one, Contact is a cold remedy. In a two colored capsule with little tiny balls like your French plecebo.
Great book by the way, doing an inter-active talk on it at my CEO Roundtable at noon today. I will let you know how it goes…
Dr. Ariely,
I am a big fan of your work, and also of Temple Grandin’s work. It seems to me, based on the way she works and writes, that Dr. Grandin is fairly immune to many of the cognitive mistakes that most people make. Perhaps because she thinks so differently than most people, she is not prone to the mistakes caused by “group think;” perhaps because she has to work so hard to get by in general, she doesn’t tend to jump to easy, lazy conclusions.
Have you ever tested high-functioning autistic people to see how susceptible they are to common cognitive errors?
Ellen Sandbeck