Numerous Researchs on The Effectiveness and Benefits of Placebo Effect

The origin of placebo word comes from the Latin language in the 18th century, which means “I shall please”. A medical doctor gives an unbeknownst pill that is the kind of sugar pill to a patient. This is called placebo. After taking the pill that improves the patient’s health because the patients’ beliefs and expectations about the treatment can effectively change their health. This is called placebo effect. Stewart-Williams and Podd, 2004 defined “A placebo is a substance or procedure that has no inherent power to produce an effect that is sought or expected. A placebo effect is a genuine psychological or physiological effect, in a human or another animal, which is attributable to receiving a substance or undergoing a procedure, but is not due to the inherent powers of that substance or procedure. ”

Numerous researches showed that placebo effect appears to be very good model to understand in medical domains can cure mental and physical illness. Such as De Pascalis et al. , (2000) demonstrated on the efficacy of Bogus analgesic cream to decreased induced finger pain revealed that a placebo analgesic had the same effect as real cream through response expectancy. Another studies showed that placebo ultrasound reduced facial swelling in dental surgery (Ho et al. , (1988). Believable placebo can heal not only in pain, but in cardiovascular disease (Bienenfeld et al. , 1996) and depression (Kirsch and Sapirstein, 1999). A roomy research of placebo effect have evaluated a diversity of magical remedies, such as snake oil, lizard’s blood (Ross and Olson, 1981; Shapiro and Shapiro, 1997) and placebo herbal cures are known that increase the actual remedy’ efficacy.

The novel phenomenon that “placebo effects of marketing” illustrated by Shiv, Carmon, and Ariely (2005), they referred the marketing placebo effect as “the influence of consumers' beliefs and expectations, affected by subjective experiences in their daily lives, on product judgments and services”. Shiv et al. (2005) demonstrated price placebo of marketing in their study that consumers expect poor quality from a lower-priced energy drink option, which influenced a lower puzzle-solving objective performance. As per their experimental study, price discounts marketing actions leads to the placebo effect. They documented that nonconscious expectations about price changes and advertising claims can alter the actual efficacy of the marketed products and consumers’ actual performance on puzzle-solving tasks. Support for their experimental, preliminary studied had illustrated in which 38 members of fitness center were consumed the energy drink with discount and regular price.

Preliminary studies result showed that discount group members rated their intensity of workout as lower than did those who consumed regular conditioned participants. Evidence from their preliminary studies suggested that discounts price of the products can lead to the performance effect through the well-known placebo effect. Actually the price for a good has totally no relationship to its actual efficacy, but consumers’ nonconscious beliefs and expectations about the goods’ price–quality relationship change their actual experience with the good. In their next three sections of experimental actions, they researched not only on the price-quality association by beliefs and expectations of marketing actions but also on the role of undesirable placebo effect from price discounts. Firmly constructed with several aspects in their experimental actions, they used a 2(price: regular versus discounted) x 2 (expectancy strength: high versus low) between subjects design. In their three experimental, 128 participants consumed Sobe energy drink purported to increase mental acuity solved by a series of word-jumble puzzles. Half of the participants got 89$ energy drinks in the discount price condition, and other half participants got 1. 89$ in the regular price conditions. The result of study showed that not only did participants anticipate that the full priced energy drink would be more effective than the participants in discounted price, but they also completed more solving the puzzles after consuming the drink. In their experimental studies, they found either the association between price and quality the products or price affected the actual efficacy of the products indeed. Leading to that cues, Waber et al. , (2008) conducted in their double-blind experiment that half members spend a new certified opioid analgesic with regular price of $2. 50 per pill and the other half spend discount price of $0. 10 per pill. The discounted price participants got lower pain tolerance than the regular price participants.

Indeed, Marketing Placebo Effects go far beyond expectancies based on price and quality; a large body of literature in consumer psychology has investigated how people’s expectancies shape consumption experiences. Different ways from the previous researchers, Plassmann and Weber (2015) have examined “individual differences in marketing placebo effects. ” To reach this goal, they have drawn on neuroscientific evidence for the underlying mechanisms of pain placebo effects to extend Shiv, Carmon, and Ariely’s (2005a, b) model of marketing placebo effects and suggested a multi- disciplinary model of how marketing-based expectancies alter subjective consumption experiences. They then tested the novel aspects of this model with various marketing placebo effects (e. g. , price, brand labels, claims) and sensory experiences (food and aesthetic consumption) a two-step procedure.

The original of marking placebo effect study showed that price relates with quality by regarding of consumers’ expectations and behavioral performance. Different way of observation on placebo effect, Wright et al. (2013) observed several non-price variables (set size, scarcity, packing and taste). In their experimental, discounted price Brazilian drink (Pharmaton Power) enhanced mental acuity by completing a puzzle where participants solved as many words as possible from a matrix letters (adapted from Shiv et al. , 2005).

Kim and Jang (2013) examined consumers’ perceptions of hedonic products (coffee consumption) price and the role of prices, that cues improves consumers’ experiences. They indicated that a higher price induces consumer’s expectations of higher perceived quality or prestige sensitivity and increases purchase intentions. The design and questionnaires to measure of this study included customer perceptions of coffee attributes, service quality and atmospheres, measures of price perception (i. e price-quality schema and prestige sensitivity). In order to capture consumers’ hedonic consumption, they selected luxury cafes (i. e at least the average price of cup of coffee US$7 compared with a other coffees shop costing round US$3) in Gangnam that well known as the “Beverly Hills of Seoul” to test hedonic price placebo effect. The result have shown from the out of 380 responses that a positive overall perception of quality at luxury cafes (including coffee, service and atmosphere) significantly induced by the both factors such as price-quality and prestige sensitivity. Generally, the results suggested that the premium pricing strategy could be successfully conducted as a placebo effect on consumers. Furthermore, they contributed and adopted the positive or beneficial effects of the price placebo effect instead of negative view of placebos in marketing domains such as Shiv et al. (2005). It means their study also have shown that price lead to positive placebo effect in hedonic consumption contexts.

Rao (2005) proposed, if new car buyers haggle aggressively before receiving a discount, they may attribute the discount to their bargaining skills rather than to quality. Thus, price–quality beliefs may not be activated for or may be less salient to such buyers. This possibility is consistent with Simonson, Carmon, and O’Curry’s (1994) finding that when a deeply discounted television set had a scratch on a side panel, it was preferred more than when there was no such scratch, presumably because consumers attributed the low price to the scratch (ignoring the possibility that the television may be of low quality regardless of the scratch). These examples suggest that when there is a salient potential reason for a low price, global price–quality beliefs may have less of an impact.

According to the Shiv et al. , (2005), they observed not only in its regular price and a discount price, but also into the intrinsic aspects (the products ingredients) and extrinsic factors (the brand name) could have activated beliefs about their effects and the products’ quality. Irmak, Block and Fitzsimons’s (2005) hypothesized that brand placebo at a physiological level can shaded by motivation which plays a key role in changing response. They analyzed interesting study of psychological and physiological mechanisms that yield between motivational placebo effects and drink consumed. In their study, consumers drink an energy drink, a placebo drink, or water (control condition). They found that the placebo effect manifests only for consumers who desire (high-motivation consumers) the arousing effects of an energy drink. Such consumers experience identical physiological and subjective behavioral changes as those who actually consume the energy drink. In this experiment, they used a 2 (drink consumed: energy drink versus placebo) × 2 (motivation: high versus low, measured) between-subjects design. In order to experiment to these designs, participants were assigned three main conditions such as the energy drink condition, the placebo condition and control conditions.

As in Shiv et al., (2005) research, the placebo effect to change in the participants’ actual experience and performance with the efficacy of the products but in their study results have shown that these placebo effect were observed for highly motivated participants. When participants reported a high degree of desire for the increased energetic boost from an energy drink, they found that the placebo beverage led to the same levels of performance and physiological change that an actual energy drink containing caffeine and taurine provided. However, when participants had low levels of motivation, consumption of the energy beverage led to the same effects as a glass of water. In addition to the important role that the marketing placebo effects enhanced by expectations, these data suggest that motivation also plays an important role. Their investigation suggests that sometimes consumers do not necessarily have to expect a product to work; they just have to want it to work. Although the medical literature reveals that the focus of investigations is on positive or beneficial effects of placebos, Shiv et al. , (2005) clearly demonstrate that there can be substantial negative effects of placebos in marketing contexts. An interesting aspect of Shiv et al. , (2005) work is the demonstration that marketing placebo effects can occur largely non-consciously. Whereas the motivation that drove the placebo effect they observed in their study was conscious, it seems highly likely that the mechanism through which it operated may also have been nonconscious.

Several studies have shown that expectancies can change consumption experiences of physically identically composed goods. Enax and Weber (2015) argued that investigation only on physical properties of a product, such as the composition of ingredients, may not be sufficient to increase market shares, and that marketing efforts have a strong impact on sales, demand and consumption experiences. Such a global belief led to a placebo effect, by participants encountered enhanced the opposite sex members’ sexual attractiveness. Friedman and colleagues’ (2005) observed that a global belief held by some people, “consuming alcohol increases sexual desire, ” by presenting words such as “‘martini” and “vodka”.

Priilaid (2006) proposed the purpose of the paper is to ascertain the extent to which the sighted appreciation of a wine’s intrinsic merit is confounded by extrinsic cues such as price and region of origin in the Wine’s placebo effect (such red wine in the south African). He used his methodology design by using a database of sighted and blind tastings of three red South African wines (Cabernet, Merlot and Shiraz) over the period 1993-2001, a series of multiple linear regression models is developed to explain sighted quality ratings. He constructed his design that the independent or candidate variables possibly signaling sight-based wine quality include the wine’s cultivar (Cabernet, Merlot, Shiraz), price, the area of origin indicator, the percentage of red wine made per farm, as well as number of intrinsic quality metrics based on blind tastings. Then his finding also has shown that three statistically significant explicatory factors, namely price, region, and intrinsic quality. The price cue alone explains 84 percent of sighted quality assessments; the combined effect of both the region and price cue explains 95 per cent. This finding suggests that when quality is measured from a sighted perspective, area becomes a significant explicator, along with price. It is only once the cues of region and price have been factored into the meta-model that intrinsic merit becomes relevant, and here, only to an extremely limited extent (5 percent). The lack of correspondence between sighted and blind tasting scores, suggests that for sighted judgements – extrinsic cues appear to be masking the wine’s intrinsic merit.

According to Manrai, Lascu and Manrai (1998), consumers evaluate products not only based on elements such as color, design and shape, but also by aspects like price, warranty and country of origin. Lazzari and Slongo (2015) demonstrated the stereotypes due to the country of origin of products is a global phenomenon in marketing placebo effects, in which goods from countries with negative stereotypes are perceived as having worse quality in relation to products from countries with positive reputations. This study analyzed the occurrence of this effect for an energy drink, based on an experiment among 105 university students, by measuring the variations in mental acuity and reasoning speed after drinking products supposedly originating from different countries.

The results call attention to the importance of the country of origin’s stereotype on the creation of expectations regarding the product’s efficacy, with a consequent placebo effect on its performance. Analogously to the negative placebo effect generated by low price in the study of Shiv, Carmon and Ariely (2005), they found that the negative stereotype of the country of origin generated a negative effect on the product’s performance. The results indicated that the origin from a country with a negative stereotype regarding product quality can generate a negative placebo effect. In other words, the subjects who drank the beverage thinking it was from China performed worse that the participants of the control group, who thought the drink came from Germany. However, they did not identify a positive placebo effect of that country of origin. Their results show the ability of a country’s stereotype to modify the real performance of a product, but only for countries with negative stereotype, since “Made in China” contributed to worse performance of the product, while “Made in USA” was not able to improve the performance significantly.

Shiv, Carmon, and Ariely suggested that some types of placebo effect can occur without conscious awareness. Specifically, they found evidence that the price effect operates in this manner. Considering the “conscious” placebo effect, at least three cognitive operations are required: the provision of information that is salient to the subjective phenomenon (e. g. , the application of “analgesic” cream), the maintenance of the information in working memory, and the expectation that this information will affect the experience. The first two functions are most closely associated with conscious awareness, but the last one could occur without a person’s awareness through Pavlovian conditioning.