Question

John recently took what he thought was a pain reliever and reports less shoulder pain. However, the pill he took was only a sugar pill. This best illustrates the

a. Placebo effect
b. Hawthorne effect
c. Confirmation bias
d. Random error

Answer 1

John's reduction in shoulder pain after taking a sugar pill without any therapeutic effect is an example of the placebo effect, which occurs from the expectation of benefit, not the actual treatment. so, option a is the correct answer.

Step-by-step explanation:

John's experience of feeling less shoulder pain after taking a sugar pill best illustrates the placebo effect. The placebo effect is a psychologically based reaction to an intervention that occurs solely because of the expectation of benefit, not because the intervention itself has a therapeutic effect. In this scenario, the sugar pill served as a placebo, a fake treatment included in studies to control for the placebo effect.

In medical research and pharmaceutical studies, the placebo effect is accounted for by using control groups that receive a placebo instead of the actual medicinal drug. This helps determine whether the effects are due to the drug itself or are a result of participant expectations. A study design that frequently incorporates placebos is the double-blind study, where neither the researchers nor the participants know who receives the real treatment and who receives the placebo to prevent experimenter bias and control for the placebo effect.