Most people know what the placebo effect is, but few know how powerful it can be. Beyond that, it is all too common for a person to deny their own susceptibility to the placebo effect. Placebos come in many forms; some simple, some bizarre. The form we all know is the sugar pill, which is given to test subjects or to patients who beg for medication despite not really needing it. Have you heard of a placebo button? It is a button that people can press, but it does not do anything. Think: the close door button on most elevators or the cross-walk button. Clicking it makes you think you're in control, but you're really just soothing your own mind and reinforcing a habit.
Scientists (the ones who look for empirical evidence, as opposed to the ones who just call themselves so) agree that homeopathic medicine and other cures deriving from spiritual remedies are only successful because of the placebo effect. You may refute that these methods have been known to cure some serious maladies, but there are two things going against that argument: there is no empirical evidence to support this (or else even doctors would use these methods) and I repeat that you might not be aware of how powerful a placebo can be. Consider the world of arthroscopic knee surgery, which has been turned on its ear within the last 10 years after a published report that stated that the pain relief gained by a routine, invasive procedure was no more valid than a placebo pill. The study noted that patients receiving nothing but two little cuts to make them think that the surgeons actually did something reported the same rate of pain relief as those who got the whole saline wash and cartilage removal procedure that has been standard for decades. This was an embarrassment to arthroscopy surgeons everywhere, but an important step in understand how much power our mind has over our perceived reality.
If you sympathize with knee surgery patients who went under the knife unnecessarily, you should hear about angina pectoris sufferers before the 1950's who had their sternum cracked open and one of their arteries tied off, only for the procedure to be found completely ineffective in 1955. The actual source of the relief? Placebo. Beyond the remedies that we use to get things off of our mind, the amount that we pay for them also matters when it comes to their effectiveness. This is where placebo meets expectations. Like all products, we expect the ones which cost more to be better or last longer. In fact, some products are purposefully overpriced because nobody would trust their effectiveness if they were sold closer to cost. Conversely, higher prices have made reputations for some products, despite their lack of any real advantage over competitors (Monster Cables, anyone?). If you pay 10 cents for an asprin or $2.50 for a miracle pill, which one do you think will be more effective? Which one do you think you'll give the benefit of the doubt to? (If, for the sake of being contrary, you say "the 10 cent asprin," you're only kidding yourself.)
Cognitive dissonance says that the more we invest in something, the more we are likely to appreciate it, even if it disappoints us. If we extrapolate what we know about the placebo effect and apply it to other things, we can get a better picture of how we, as human animals, pad the walls of our minds with justifications and confidence in faith. While it is exhaustive to require empirical evidence for everything we believe to be true, matters of belief and spirituality are better understood with the knowledge of how easily we fool ourselves. This, in spite of how vigilant we are in keeping it real.
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