Are Blue Pills Better Than Green? How Treatment Features Modulate Placebo Effects

Abstract

Treatment-related expectations are important predictors for placebo effects in various medical conditions. They are formed by verbal and nonverbal cues during the administration of treatments, such as verbal suggestions, conscious and unconscious associations with previous treatments, characteristics of patients and health-care providers as well as perceptual characteristics of the treatment. This review provides an overview of studies that aimed to elucidate the impact of treatment characteristics on expectations and placebo effects. Results show that high price, brand label, the use of invasive placebos and high placebo dose increase the expectations toward the beneficial effect of a placebo treatment, which in turn boost the placebo effect. Neuroimaging studies provide first insights into the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these differential placebo effects.

Keywords: Acupuncture; Brand label; Expectation; Pain; Perceptual characteristics; Placebo effect; Price.