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The Placebo Effect

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The placebo effect occurs when people's expectations or beliefs influence or determine their experience in a given situation. In other words, simply expecting something to happen can actually make it happen.

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Ideally, the people who observe and record the children’s behavior are unaware of who was assigned to the experimental or control group, in order to control for experimenter bias. Experimenter bias refers to the possibility that a researcher’s expectations might skew the results of the study. Remember, conducting an experiment requires a lot of planning, and the people involved in the research project have a vested interest in supporting their hypotheses. If the observers knew which...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 22, 2026

How to Study Placebo Responses in Motion Sickness with a Rotation Chair Paradigm in Healthy Participants

How to Study Placebo Responses in Motion Sickness with a Rotation Chair Paradigm in Healthy Participants

Published on: December 14, 2014

Placebo, nocebo, and learning mechanisms.

Luana Colloca¹

¹National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Building 10, Room 1C154, Bethesda, MD, 20892-1156, USA, luana.colloca@nih.gov.

Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology

|October 12, 2014

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Learning mechanisms for placebo and nocebo effects are diverse, influenced by psychological and biological factors. Research reveals new insights into how these responses are learned across various conditions.

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Last Updated: Apr 22, 2026

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Psychology
Pharmacology

Background:

Placebo and nocebo responses are modulated by distinct learning mechanisms.
Psychological and biological factors influence these learning processes.

Purpose of the Study:

To review current research on learning mechanisms in placebo and nocebo effects.
To explore human and nonhuman studies on these phenomena.

Main Methods:

Literature review of laboratory and theoretical research.
Analysis of human and nonhuman experimental data.

Main Results:

Substantial evidence suggests varied learning pathways for placebo and nocebo effects.
Identification of key psychological and biological modulators.

Conclusions:

Our understanding of placebo and nocebo learning mechanisms has significantly advanced.
These insights apply across diverse physiological and pathological contexts.