ADHD 6 Flashcards
Classical conditioning placebo effect
unconditioned stimulus (active medication) (reflex) -> unconditioned response (relief of symptom), neutral stimulus (pill) paired + UCS active medication -> UCR (relief of symptom), many pairings then neutral stimulus presented alone, CS (pill) (non reflex learned association) -> conditioned response (symptom relief)
Persuasion literature
practitioner -> context/medium message -> patient
Example use of anti-psychotic medication
both groups given antipsychotic ‘chlorpromazine’ with half told confidently drug would work and half told it was experimental (doubt on effectiveness); ones told it would work had 77% symptoms disappeared while those told it was experimental had only 10% symptoms disappeared
What factors can influence placebo effect
practitioner factors; patient factors; social environment (context) factors
Practitioner factors
Taylor (1986) found if practitioners are warm, confident. empathetic, radiate competence and indicate explicitly and strongly that the medication will work there is an increase in placebo effect
How important is practitioner behaviour
one of Taylor’s studies placebo influenced 44% of respondents but a warm confident practitioner increased it to 62%
Patient factors
Jackson (1998) found 35% of patients are susceptible if they have a high need for approval; highly anxious and external attributions
High need for approval
increase in social comparison, thus more social influence by doctor’s suggestion effects, thus more placebo
Highly anxious
Schachter (1959) showed increase in anxiety, increased social comparison, increased social influence
External attributions
more likely to attribute cause to external factors (the medicine) rather than internal factors (their thoughts and behaviours)
Social environment (context factors) (4)
1) setting and procedures are formal, medical and ritualised; 2) injections rather than taken orally; 3) hints that medication is powerful and great care needs to be taken; 4) oral medication that is foul tasting, peculiar looking, taken in precise dosage at specific prescribed times (cognitive dissonance)
Cognitive dissonance
If I am suffering it must be good; worm eating experiment
Social norms and medication
expectations and attribution associated with prescription taking
Determination of the presence of illness
presence of (disease) symptoms that are different today
Initial reaction to symptoms
failure to regain health = illness external/no personal control
