Research Design Connection: Placebos Still Work

 

Research by Garvey, Germann and Bolton supports the placebo effect. They report that when people completed tasks using products that were promoted as enhancing performance on the tasks tested, their performance, objectively measured, was better than when exactly the same products were used to do the same tasks but not promoted as performance enhancing: “Five field and laboratory studies demonstrate that this performance brand effect emerges through psychological mechanisms unrelated to functional product differences, consistent with a placebo…this effect emerges only when there is an expectation that the performance branded product affects outcomes, consumers attribute gains to themselves. The performance brand placebo is due to a lowering of task-induced anxiety, driven by heightened state self-esteem.”

“Performance” products tested included golf clubs and foam ear plugs, and enhanced performance was found with both physical and cognitive tasks. The effect found is not as strong when people are experts at the task tested. Furnishings, for example, are regularly promoted as performance enhancing. So, this work by Garvey, Germann and Bolton, indicates that furnishings promoted as performance enhancing are particularly likely to affect the performance of new entrants to the workforce.

Aaron Garvey, Frank Germann and Lisa Bolton. “Performance Brand Placebos: How Brands Improve Performance and Consumers Take the Credit.” Journal of Consumer Research, in press.

Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.