placebo effect
Sugar pill phenomenon
The placebo effect is a measurable improvement in a person's condition that occurs after receiving an inactive treatment—a sugar pill, saline injection, or sham procedure.
The improvement stems from belief in the treatment rather than any active ingredient.
Medical trials use placebos to distinguish real drug effects from psychological ones.
The term extends to any situation where expectations produce results: The new manager changed nothing, but morale improved—pure placebo effect.
- sugar pillInactive substitute for medicine
- control groupUntreated subjects for comparison
- clinical trialsControlled health research experiments
- medical researchScientific study of health
- blindingPainfully intense light
healing · sham · double-blind · self-medication · expectation · conditioning · suggestion · belief · endorphins · symptom · neuroplasticity · brain · pharmaceutical · hope · doctor · mind over matter · power of belief · treatment
- medicinedoctor, doctors, hospital, medicine, surgery
- effectsconsequence, result, outcome, aftereffect, vignette
- Unproven beliefssuperstition, delusion, false hope, wishful thinking, pipe dream
- clinical trialsclinical trial, double-blind, control group, double blind, trial
- pharmacologypharmacology, drugs, pharmacokinetics, dose, drug
- Placebossugar pill, dummy pill