Self-Induced Placebo Effect
I’m a big fan of placebo effects. If I can feel better without actually affecting my body, why shouldn’t I do that?
I’m in the middle of Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational, and I just got to the section on the power of price. The key takeaway from a particular experiment was that a $0.10 placebo will be perceived as less effective than a $2.50 placebo. I was not surprised by this result, and I use the outcome all the time in my daily life. I buy brand name OTC drugs: Advil, Neosporin, Robitussin. I am well aware that the physical effect on my body is supposed to be no different from their generic counterparts. But, I am able to give myself a placebo effect by buying the brand names, and I take advantage of that opportunity.
Furthermore, since my feelings are nothing more than a swirl of chemicals in my brain, the brand name drugs actually do work better because they put my chemical balance in a better state. It’s the brand association and marketing that’s giving me the positive chemical boost over a generic drug, not an attribute of the medicine itself, but I’m fine with that.
Anyone else do this? It’s an irrational choice, but it works for me.
not exactly the same but definitely related - coffee is an interesting case for me. I get a raging headache if I don’t have a coffee (or three) in the morning - worst case scenario is I’m travelling or in circumstances where for some reason I know I’m not going to have a chance to get a coffee for a number of hours. I will obssess about it and will invariably get the worst headache which only coffee will cure. Straight-up chemical dependency, right? On the other hand, there have been times where I’ve got my first coffee of the day but it’s way too hot to drink, so it sits in front of me while I work and sometimes I forget that it’s there. Hours will go by and suddenly I realize I haven’t had any coffee at all, but I somehow don’t have a headache - just having it there in front of me, having access to it was enough to prevent the headache.
