Overview
Hearing outcome expectations from an authority can affect our physiology and cognitions.
Types
| Name | Description | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| Observer-Expectancy Effect | When a researcher expects a given result and therefore unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterprets data in order to find it (see also subject-expectancy effect). | [1] |
| Pessimism Bias | The tendency for some people, especially those suffering from depression, to overestimate the likelihood of negative things happening to them. | [1] |
| Placebo Effect | Improvement to patient-reported outcomes such as pain and nausea through treatment with therapeutically inert interventions otherwise suggested to be effective. | [2] |
| Nocebo Effect | The opposite of the Placebo Effect regarding negative outcomes through treatment suggested to have negative effects. | [3] |
Performance Perspectives
- We should mind our expectations of our colleagues given the plausible downside of implying negative expectations.
- One can plausibly improve their performance through the practice of noticing cognitive nocebo's and engineering cognitive placebos.
Key Research
- From [2]: A 2001 Cochrane Collaboration meta-analysis of the placebo effect looked at trials in 40 different medical conditions, and concluded the only one where it had been shown to have a significant effect was for pain [4]. By contrast, placebos do not appear to affect the actual diseases, or outcomes that are not dependent on a patient's perception [5].
- From [3]: It has been shown that, due to the nocebo effect, warning patients about side effects of drugs can contribute to the causation of such effects, whether the drug is real or not [6, 7]. This effect has been observed in clinical trials: according to a 2013 review, the dropout rate among placebo-treated patients in a meta-analysis of 41 clinical trials of Parkinson's disease treatments was 8.8% [8]. A 2013 review found that nearly 1 out of 20 patients receiving a placebo in clinical trials for depression dropped out due to adverse events, which were believed to have been caused by the nocebo effect [9].
Related Fallacies
| Name | Description | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| Loaded label | While not inherently fallacious, use of evocative terms to support a conclusion is a type of begging the question fallacy. When fallaciously used, the term's connotations are relied on to sway the argument towards a particular conclusion. For example, an organic foods advertisement that says "Organic foods are safe and healthy foods grown without any pesticides, herbicides, or other unhealthy additives." Use of the term "unhealthy additives" is used as support for the idea that the product is safe. | [10] [11] |
| Loaded or complex question | Asking a question that presupposes something that has not been proven or accepted by all the people involved. This fallacy is often used rhetorically so that the question limits direct replies to those that serve the questioner's agenda. | [10] |
References & Acknowledgements
[1] Wikipedia contributors. "List of cognitive biases." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 14 Jul. 2020. Web. 23 Jul. 2020. link
[2] Wikipedia contributors. "Placebo." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 1 Jul. 2020. Web. 23 Jul. 2020. link
[3] Wikipedia contributors. "Nocebo." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 18 Jul. 2020. Web. 23 Jul. 2020. link
[4] Hróbjartsson A, Gøtzsche PC (May 2001). "Is the placebo powerless? An analysis of clinical trials comparing placebo with no treatment". The New England Journal of Medicine. 344 (21): 1594–602. doi:10.1056/NEJM200105243442106. PMID 11372012.
[5] Hróbjartsson A, Gøtzsche PC (January 2010). Hróbjartsson A (ed.). "Placebo interventions for all clinical conditions" (PDF). The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 106 (1): CD003974. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD003974.pub3. PMC 7156905. PMID 20091554.
[6] Colloca, Luana; Miller, Franklin G. (2011). "The Nocebo Effect and its Relevance for Clinical Practice". Psychosomatic Medicine. 73 (7): 598–603. doi:10.1097/PSY.0b013e3182294a50. PMC 3167012. PMID 21862825.
[7] Barsky, Arthur J.; Saintfort, R.; Rogers, M. P.; Borus, J. F. (2002). "Nonspecific Medication Side Effects and the Nocebo Phenomenon". JAMA. 287 (5): 622–7. doi:10.1001/jama.287.5.622. PMID 11829702.
[8] Stathis, P.; Smpiliris, M.; Konitsiotis, S.; Mitsikostas, D. D. (2013). "Nocebo as a potential confounding factor in clinical trials for Parkinson's disease treatment: A meta-analysis". European Journal of Neurology. 20 (3): 527–533. doi:10.1111/ene.12014. PMID 23145482.
[9] Mitsikostas, Dimos D.; Mantonakis, Leonidas; Chalarakis, Nikolaos (2014). "Nocebo in clinical trials for depression: A meta-analysis". Psychiatry Research. 215 (1): 82–86. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2013.10.019. PMID 24210741.
[10] Wikipedia contributors. "List of fallacies." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 26 Jul. 2020. Web. 28 Jul. 2020.
[11] John D. Ramage; John C. Bean; June Johnson (2016). Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings, Concise Edition, MLA Update Edition. Pearson Education. p. 275. ISBN 978-0-13-458649-6.
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