The Placebo Effect and Fear of Public Speaking

Abstract

Abstract Prior studies have shown that the administration of a placebo, an inert sugar pill, can have therapeutic benefits on many medical conditions. In all prior placebo studies, placebos have been shown to reduce passively experienced symptoms (e.g., migraine headache pain). The current study would build on prior research by testing if a placebo will cause participants to actively change their symptoms. It will test whether a placebo will activate participants to fight their symptoms, what we call an activating placebo effect. 75 participants with a fear of public speaking would be identified by validated questionnaires. They would do a brief public speaking task; the length of the speech and their self-reported level of fear experienced during the task would be measured. One week later, they would be randomly assigned to one of three groups: active placebo group (told the placebo is the fear-reducing drug, Propranolol), the open-label placebo group (honestly told the pill is a placebo), and a no treatment control group. The participants would complete the public speaking task once more after the intervention; once again the length of speech and level of fear would be measured. We would conduct a 3 x 2, Intervention (drug belief, open-placebo, no intervention, between-subjects) x Public Speaking Time (within-subjects) mixed-model ANOVA to test the hypotheses. We expect that the participants who believed they took a real drug will speak for longer and will report less fear than those who knew they had received a placebo. If the interaction effect is significant, it would show that participants who believed they got the fear reducing drug improved more than the other two groups. The theoretical and potential clinical implications of these potential findings are discussed.