Handwarming and relaxation in temperature feedback: positive placebo effects

Sixteen males and females were randomly assigned to either temperature feedback groups warm-relax (WR) or cool-relax (CR) to determine how successful hand-warming and -cooling alters the subjective report of relaxation. After eight 1/2-hour sessions the WR and CR demonstrated a significant difference in temperature change, but there were no significant main effects in reported subjective relaxation. The reported feelings of relaxation were negatively correlated to the directionality of temperature change and were primarily attributed to nonspecific expectancies.