I could see how taking a pill could, through repeated pairings, become associated with a particular effect. However, with the placebo effect, it would seem that there are two additional concerns. 1) If a person has taken a number of pills over the years for various conditions, and the pills had various effects, wouldn't this dilute the placebo effect in the case of any particular effect? On the other hand, if every pill you ever took had analgesic effects, it would seem that a pill could come to elicit a conditioned response. But that leads us to 2) Would the placebo response be congruent with or opposite of the original effect? For example, if a stimulatory effect is predicted by the delivery of a CS, the CR can often be the opposite of the UR (a depressant effect) allowing the organism to maintain homeostasis. In that case, the placebo effect would be the opposite of the effect of the drug.
Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences Professor of Psychology Box 3055 John Brown University 2000 W. University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [email protected] (479)524-7295 http://tinyurl.com/DrFroman "The LORD detests both Type I and Type II errors." Proverbs 17:15 From: Michael Burman [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2011 11:12 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Placebos: stirring the pot No one has really addressed my question as to why any classically conditioned stimulus could not be viewed as a placebo (or nocebo). I think no one has answered this because it is essentially correct. Classical conditioning is a likely mechanism for the placebo effect. Robert Ader gave a talk at the Pavlovian Society Meeting a couple of years back showing that the immune system in rats could be classically conditioned to respond to a CS via pairings with an immuno-suppressent drug. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12615187 In humans, there are other plausible mechanisms involving cognitive expectations, but those certainly wouldn't rule out a role for classical conditioning. So - I think the answer is "yes". Placebo's work because a taking a little pill is so often associated with effective drugs. The more pills we take, the larger the placebo effect will become. Perhaps we are already seeing evidence of this. Mike ------- Michael A Burman Ph.D. Assistant Professor Dept. of Psychology 328 Decary Hall University of New England 11 Hills Beach Rd Biddeford ME 04005 207-602-2301 [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13039.37a56d458b5e856d05bcfb3322db5f8a&n=T&l=tips&o=7646 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-7646-13039.37a56d458b5e856d05bcfb3322db5...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-7646-13039.37a56d458b5e856d05bcfb3322db5...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=7647 or send a blank email to leave-7647-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
