Placebo Effect and the Ethics Surrounding it

Ethan Cooper

Placebo Effect and the Ethics That Surround It

   In any given official experiment, a random assignment of people will be selected in order for the results not to be skewed. Moreover, the experiments will often be double-blind experiments, in which the conductor of the experiment as well as the one being experimented on does not know if they are being given a real pill or a placebo. This system causes impartiality and lack of bias. In experiments, there is a control group where every other factor expect one thing (the thing you are looking for) is carefully dealt with and factored. This leaves us with the independent variable, which is what is being manipulated, and the dependent variable, which is what is being measured.

   Now I would like to introduce the following story: My name is Tommy, and I am facing depression. I walk into a lab and I am given a respective pill in an experiment conducted to find out if the new anti-depressant medicine, the Makemehappy pill, is an effective form of treatment. The results I had were outstanding. I felt better than ever.      

     Tommy, the individual being treated, does not know he had been given a placebo pill. A placebo pill is essentially a pill that has no medicine in it, yet feels like, looks like, and has the same texture as the medicine being tested. Can we conclude that the pill Tommy is receiving is revolved around good morals and ethics? Is it really ethical to provide someone with a pill and have their own psychological feelings control their destiny.

    The placebo effect could be harnessed deliberately in patient care, and may eventually replace real treatment. According to a study at Finniss and colleagues, prescribing placebos was a common practice within the community of physicians surveyed, despite the potential adverse consequences for both patients’ and public health (for example, the development of resistant strains of bacteria if antibiotics are prescribed when they are not medically indicated). While no one would disagree that placebos should be exercised and tested in labs, the real debate comes in if their functionality should be commonplace in hospitals. Placebos are deceptive mechanisms in order to make a patient feel good. Certainly in hospitals there may be better solutions that tricking the patient into feeling fine. The mind clearly does have a powerful grip in controlling emotions and health.

Illusory Correlation

A very interesting topic we learned about this week was the concept of correlations. A correlation is a measure of whether two independent factors affect each other. The example we gave in class was the relationship between sleep and one's GPA and whether the more sleep one gets, the higher his or her GPA will be. I remember reading the section of Unit 2 in the textbook that discusses correlations, and there was a specific kind of correlation that interested me: illusory correlations. The book's definition of an illusory correlation is "the perception of a relationship where none exists." In other words, you only think there's a correlational relationship between two things, but really it's all in your head. Let's apply it to our example given in class. Say you participate in a conversation with your contemporaries about how much sleep each person gets, and you start to put two and two together and see that those that get the least amount of sleep aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, and vice versa. If you tell all of your friends that sleep affects GPA, you're going to look like a fool when an actual correlational study regarding this specific relationship is released and it shows that there is absolutely no relationship between the two. You only think there's a relationship, but really it's all in your head. You can also apply the idea of psychologically perceiving something that actually doesn't exist to something other than correlations. For instance, say your roll a die 10 times, and each time it rolls it lands on 5. You might think that the die is loaded, or that in general fives get landed on a lot. But in actuality, you have a 1/6 chance each time you roll it that it lands on a five, so you perceive a sequence of events that doesn't exist. When I learned about the illusory correlation, I tried to think of an instance where I may have perceived a phenomenon that didn't exist. I then remembered this one time when I played Rock-Paper-Scissors with Mr. Vaughn, and he won EVERY SINGLE TIME! I thought, "It's not possible. He must be cheating." But now I realize that each time we played, he had the same chance of beating me, and he happened to win each round. Learning about these new psychological phenomenon and applying them to my everyday life have really excited me for whatever we learn in the upcoming lectures.

The Placebo Effect

Sendy Gross

The Placebo Effect

            As I was reading the textbook I came across this concept of the placebo effect. I found it really interesting that if a person believes he is taking medication, often times it will work. This happens because as the person takes the placebo, the belief that the person is taking actual medication can relax the body leading the person feeling better. The bad thing about this is if, for example, a person takes a certain type of drug, you wont know if the drug is actually working, or if the person is just experiencing the placebo effect. This is why scientists conduct something known as the double-blind procedure. In this procedure a tester gives one group of people a certain drug, and he gives another group of people a placebo of that drug. This is called the double-blind because neither the people being tested nor the tester know which group is getting the drug and which group is getting the placebo. Using this method we are able to see if it’s the drug that is working or if it is the placebo.

first post

          I heard about this class last year from some of the girls who were taking it, and it sounded so interesting. When I found out that I would have the wonderful opportunity to take AP Psych I was so happy. But then the bombshell was dropped. The students told me that the class requires so many hours of work every week plus saturday night and sunday sessions. I figured they were probably exaggerating a lot because so many people that I talk to say that its one of the easier APs. 

          This summer I realized that they were not kidding. At first the work just looked so discouraging and it made me doubt my decision of taking the class in the first place. When I started reading the summer work I was amazed at how interesting it all was. When I got to the and of the reading i wanted the rest of the book. I am not a big reader and that feeling was weird especially because it was a required reading from a textbook. 

         There were two things really interested me: the progression of the field and early psychology. I know that the early philosophers are very intelligent people but it amazing to me what the accomplished without the tools and knowledge that we have. To them psychology was more of a philosophy than a science. They raised some of the most important questions and some of them still have not been answered. For example the nature-nurture debate and the dualist-monist debate. Its mind-boggling to me how much they knew and understood 2500 years ago and that even today we still do not have answers to their questions. I also thinks its fascinating how psychology developed from a philosophy to a huge scientific field with so many different subfields. It reminds me of a city's road system: in the beginning there was one way but as the city develops so do the streets. Now that one street has side-streets and alleys that are all connected in some way or another. 

The definition of Psychology

The official definition of Psychology has changed multiple times over the past century and a half. After the first psychological experiment was conducted, in 1879 by William Wundt, psychology became "the science of mental behavior." For 40 years after Wundt's experiment psychologists focused on the human thought process. Then, in 1920, psychologist began to study humanistic behavior. Thus the definition officially changed to become "the science of observable behavior." Psychologist believed they could not accurately study the actions of the mind, so they had to focus on behaviors they were 100% able to observe. In 1960, after technology developed and machines were invented that allowed psychologists to accurately study the brain, psychology officially became "the science of behavior and mental process." 

-Natanel Brakha

Formal Research on Psychology

What does Formal Research do for us? We can develop a few issues if we don't have formal research, for example. We have an issue called the "Knew It All Phenomenon" this is a problem! Under certain circumstances we can be very subjective and influenced. For example, we can tell one group of people, that psychologist have researched that long distance strengthens a relationship, because as it says, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." This makes so much sense, and we can assume that it's right! But then we can go to a different group and say, researchers have studied that long distance ruins a relationship because as they say, "Out of sight, out of mind." That makes sense too! Now guess what we have? We have two contradictory ideas. Human is prone to error! When conducting formal research we can draw conclusions that are measurable and they are more accurate. Descriptive Research is an example, this allows us to observe the surroundings and everything that affects an individual's actions and thoughts. Formal Research is important and it allows us to conclude solid ideas, and solid theories! What would we do without formal research?

William Wundt in depth

           Before William Wundt came along, psychology was not very scientific. It was Wundt who turned psychology into a science in 1879. He established the first lab in Germany and did an experiment. He did the experiment in order to measure perceptual processing. He measured the time it takes for people to press a button after they hear a bell ring. He found out that when you ask an average person to press a button when they hear the bell ring, it would take 1/10 of a second. On the other hand, if you ask them to press a button when they perceive that they heard the bell ring, it takes 2/10 of a second: 1/10 of a second longer. In class, I enjoyed when we repeated the experiment. Mrs. Perl dropped something and we banged the desks when we heard it and then when we perceived that we heard it. Wundt's experiment was accurate for the most part. There is obviously some difference between sensation and perception; when we hear the sound and when we realize that we hear the sound. I do not think we touched upon in class what the actual difference is between them and why it would take longer to perceive that you heard something. I have a question for anyone that wants to comment: What’s the difference?

Illusory Correlations

While doing the summer homework (during the first week of school) this concept really caught my attention. I thought it was so interesting that when we believe two things have a correlation, our brain will go out of its way to find a connection. A scary but exciting feature of the brain. It was not surprising to me to continue reading and find out that when two random events happen in sequence, our mind is even more likely to combine these events and find a relationship among them.  

Because of the concept of illusory correlations, many superstitious beliefs arise.  This may have been the coolest part for me. Finding out that the reason why we think for example that infertile couples that adopt are more likely to conceive really has no basis but in fact is because of illusory correlations rocked my socks off. It really was awesome because I myself thought that way because it seems like it always happens that way. But in reality it is not like that. After reading this section it became obvious to me that of course my mind is not going to remember the infertile couple that adopted and then stayed infertile. This realization is really what caught my attention during this part of the reading and is the reason why I find illusory correlations so interesting.

One last thing to add is the essence of illusory correlations. When we see things that are random, we forget that they are random and therefore we see them as correlated. In return we see things that are not there. So it is important to remember that although fascinating, illusory correlations are not good by nature because they disorient us and therefore we should try to take them out of our lives. 

Overconfidence: This is the best article ever

It has got to be one of the most interesting topics in psychology, and one of the most truthful. Everyone thinks that their situation is better than everyone else's. When someone asks you to put on sunscreen most of us think, "I never get sunburned." What is it about humans that makes everyone so confident about how their situation is?
A couple of classic examples. For some reason and I do not know why, everyone thinks that their baby is the cutest thing in the world. The baby could look like Francesca Schiavone and the parents would still think it is cute. He could be fat, have one eye, and one leg really fat and the other regular sized yet the parents still call it cute. I do not get it. The reason is because overconfidence. When the parents look at their baby, it looks better to them then to other people. You know what else I find. Everyone thinks they are good looking. Its like when they look in the mirror they see a different person than themselves. Overconfidence. When people look at their fantasy football team, it looks better to them than to anyone else. Overconfidence. When people eat their food they think it is better than it really is. Overconfidence.
I still do not know why in every case, without fail, people think they are better than they really are, but it is a phenomenon that I will never be able to comprehend fully. Oh yeah, and one of the best examples is driving. Everyone thinks they are a better driver than they really are, and that is one I really do not understand because there are so many accidents that happen on the streets these days so someones got to be a bad driver.
I wonder if Moshe Rabbeinu had to deal with the problem of overconfidence. They do say he was the most humble person ever.
An experiment was conducted by Ohio State University psychologist Phillip Tetlock in which he brought in a bunch of experts to predict the future for the next five years in South Africa and the Soviet Union in terms of military, politics, and economy and he also asked them to put how confident they were that this would happen next to it. After five years, Tetlock invited the experts back to explain their prediction and he found that the ones who felt 80% confident or more about the situation were right less than 40% of the time. Despite the fact that everyone did not do so well on this test, the ones who got it wrong felt as if they were almost right.
We do not really know what the reason is for overconfidence (it probably is just something most of us are born with) and it is also possible that is something we just can't rid ourselves of, just ask Ethan Cooper.

Hindsight Bias

Ethan Cooper

A Young Money Militia

Hindsight-Bias: The Phrase I was Looking for

     I would be the first one to admit that I was terrified coming into this AP. I did not fear the difficulty or rigor involved in taking the course, nor did I believe I would fail to keep up my solid GPA. What I failed above all was that this course would be too much work for what it really is, a fairly simple AP (yes I am saying this as a student who hasn't taken the AP before). A few weeks ago, I opened up that awe-inspiring email dubbed "AP Psychology Summer Work" and immediately thought to myself, "This woman is out of her mind." However, after three hours of mere boredom of working on the assignment, I came across a vocabulary phrase that had me jumping with joy. The phrase I came across was "Hindsight-Bias." 

     This concept has been on my mind for years; however, I had always struggled to fit it into a phrase. Hindsight-bias, the "I would have done that" phenomenon, can be described in the following story: Rick Rescorla, the head of security at Morgan Stanley in the South Tower of the World Trade Center, immediately became aware of the destruction of North Tower. However, basic protocol stated that when one tower was in danger, do not evacuate the other tower. Rescorla did not heed to this advice, and evacuated the South Tower, saving over 3,000 employees at Morgan Stanley. Unfortunately, Rescorla did not make it out. 

     I share this story with you for two reasons. First, people need to know Rescorla's story, for it is incredible and motivational. Second, everyone I shared the story with gave me the exact same response: "What's so crazy about with Rescorla did? Obviously I would have evacuated the building." All of these "haters" I have shared the story with fall victim to the concept of "Hindsight-bias." They are under the impression that in the moment, they would have acted the same way. However, the only reason they would act this way is because they have seen the way it played out, and they would believe that they would do the same. This concept also deals with the idea that humans are overconfident, and tend to think they are always right and bound to make impeccable decisions. 

     I have enjoyed AP Psych thus far tremendously. Concepts like hindsight-bias and overconfidence are two terms that I have run into thus far that have had me excited for the year.

One last note: I was reading the rubric to the blogging grades and I think there is something seriously flawed. I respect proper grammar and diction; however, giving students a grade on matters as trivial as that discourages creative thinking (because students will not write as much and be forced to re-read what they have written to make sure its grammatically sound). I feel more inclined to share my ideas when I am not graded on them. Just a thought.