The lack of side effects of an ineffective treatment facilitates the development of a belief in its effectiveness (original) (raw)
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British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953), 2015
Cognitive illusions are often associated with mental health and well-being. However, they are not without risk. This research shows they can interfere with the acquisition of evidence-based knowledge. During the first phase of the experiment, one group of participants was induced to develop a strong illusion that a placebo medicine was effective to treat a fictitious disease, whereas another group was induced to develop a weak illusion. Then, in Phase 2, both groups observed fictitious patients who always took the bogus treatment simultaneously with a second treatment which was effective. Our results showed that the group who developed the strong illusion about the effectiveness of the bogus treatment during Phase 1 had more difficulties in learning during Phase 2 that the added treatment was effective.
Pseudoscientific Health Beliefs and the Perceived Frequency of Causal Relationships
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2021
Beliefs about cause and effect, including health beliefs, are thought to be related to the frequency of the target outcome (e.g., health recovery) occurring when the putative cause is present and when it is absent (treatment administered vs. no treatment); this is known as contingency learning. However, it is unclear whether unvalidated health beliefs, where there is no evidence of cause–effect contingency, are also influenced by the subjective perception of a meaningful contingency between events. In a survey, respondents were asked to judge a range of health beliefs and estimate the probability of the target outcome occurring with and without the putative cause present. Overall, we found evidence that causal beliefs are related to perceived cause–effect contingency. Interestingly, beliefs that were not predicted by perceived contingency were meaningfully related to scores on the paranormal belief scale. These findings suggest heterogeneity in pseudoscientific health beliefs and th...
Illusions of causality at the heart of pseudoscience
British Journal of Psychology, 2011
Pseudoscience, superstitions, and quackery are serious problems that threaten public health and in which many variables are involved. Psychology, however, has much to say about them, as it is the illusory perceptions of causality of so many people that needs to be understood. The proposal we put forward is that these illusions arise from the normal functioning of the cognitive system when trying to associate causes and effects. Thus, we propose to apply basic research and theories on causal learning to reduce the impact of pseudoscience. We review the literature on the illusion of control and the causal learning traditions, and then present an experiment as an illustration of how this approach can provide fruitful ideas to reduce pseudoscientific thinking. The experiment first illustrates the development of a quackery illusion through the testimony of fictitious patients who report feeling better. Two different predictions arising from the integration of the causal learning and illusion of control domains are then proven effective in reducing this illusion. One is showing the testimony of people who feel better without having followed the treatment. The other is asking participants to think in causal terms rather than in terms of effectiveness.
Naïve Beliefs About Intervening on Causes and Symptoms in the Health Domain
2015
In two experiments we tested people’s naive beliefs about where interventions act in real-world causal systems. We provided people with a description of a novel health condition that could be treated by two different treatments, a medication and a lifestyle modification. Participants judged a medication as acting on the symptoms of a disorder instead of the cause of the disorder, while a lifestyle modification was seen as acting on both the cause and the symptoms of a health condition (Experiment 1). These results held despite participants rating both treatments as effective. Providing information about the specific causal mechanism by which a treatment could work did not increase beliefs about a medication’s ability to target the cause of a disorder (Experiment 2). Implications for understanding of everyday causal interventions and health treatments is discussed.
The impact of personal pseudoscientific beliefs in the pursuit for non-evidence-based health care
Journal of Evidence-Based Healthcare, 2021
INTRODUCTION: Pseudoscientific beliefs are widespread in society and are influenced by several factors. The endorsement of alternative medicine treatments, mostly not evidence based, has relevant negative impacts on health care public policies. The understanding of the impact of pseudoscientific beliefs on the endorsement of alternative treatments is a relevant issue in this matter. OBJECTIVES: We aim at describing scientific and pseudoscientific beliefs and its impact on the endorsement of evidence and non-evidence-based health care treatments. METHOD: We conducted a survey in a representative sample of 2,091 participants from all Brazil geopolitical regions and 130 different cities. We measured knowledge about health treatments, including alternative medicine treatments, and trust in each treatment, if treatment had been previously sought, if treatments should be funded by the public health system, among other issues. We also measured beliefs in scientific and pseudoscientific cla...
Medicine-related beliefs predict attribution of symptoms to a sham medicine: A prospective study
British journal of health psychology, 2018
To investigate a range of possible predictors of nocebo responses to medicines. Prospective cohort study. In total, 203 healthy adult volunteers completed measures concerning demographics, psychological factors, medicine-related beliefs, baseline symptoms, and symptom expectations before taking a sham pill, described as 'a well-known tablet available without prescription' that was known to be associated with several side effects. Associations between these measures and subsequent attribution of symptoms to the tablet were assessed using a hurdle model consisting of a joint logistic and truncated negative binomial regression. Men had an increased odds of attributing symptoms to the tablet OR = 1.52, and older participants had decreased odds, OR = 0.97. Medicine-related beliefs were important, with modern health worries, belief that medicines cause harm and perceived sensitivity to medicines associated with increased odds of symptom attribution, OR = 1.02, 1.10, 1.09, respecti...
A Behavioral Confirmation and Reduction of the Natural versus Synthetic Drug Bias
Medical Decision Making
Research reveals a biased preference for natural v. synthetic drugs; however, this research is based on self-report and has not examined ways to reduce the bias. We examined these issues in 5 studies involving 1125 participants. In a pilot study ( N = 110), participants rated the term natural to be more positive than the term synthetic, which reveals a default natural-is-better belief. In studies 1 ( N = 109) and 2 ( N = 100), after a supposed personality study, participants were offered a thank you “gift” of a natural or synthetic pain reliever. Approximately 86% (study 1) and 93% (study 2) of participants chose the natural v. synthetic pain reliever, which provides a behavioral choice confirmation of the natural drug bias. In studies 3 ( N = 350) and 4 ( N = 356), participants were randomly assigned to a control or experimental condition and were asked to consider a scenario in which they had a medical issue requiring a natural v. synthetic drug. The experimental condition include...
The Application of Persuasion Theory to Placebo Effects
Elsevier eBooks, 2018
Placebo effects, or positive outcomes resulting from expectations about a treatment, are powerful components of modern medical care. In this chapter, we suggest that our understanding of placebo effects may benefit from more explicitly connecting this phenomenon to the existing empirical psychological literature on persuasion. Persuasion typically involves an attempt to bring about a change in beliefs or attitudes as a result of providing information on a topic. We begin by providing a brief overview of the psychological literature on placebo effects. We then point to connections between this literature and research on persuasive communication. Although some links have been made, these initial connections have predominantly relied on classic theories of persuasion rather than on more contemporary and comprehensive models. Next, we describe a modern theory of persuasion that may facilitate the study of placebo effects and analyze two issues pertinent to the literature on placebo effects from the lens of this model. Specifically, we consider how and when characteristics of a practitioner (e.g., variables such as perceptions of a practitioner's confidence or competence) can influence the magnitude of placebo effects, and how modern persuasion theory can help in understanding the durability of placebo effects over time. We conclude that examining placebo effects as an outcome of persuasive communication would be a fruitful line of future research.