Social learning of placebo effects across the lifespan in an experimental heat pain paradigm (SLOPE)

• Applicant: Dr. Katja Weimer
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology ; General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology ; Clinical Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 270440769

Placebo effects are part of every medical intervention, in clinical studies as well as in daily practice. Therefore, knowledge about their mechanisms is crucial to minimize their influences in clinical studies but to maximize them in clinical routine.Current research about placebo effects mainly focuses on two mechanisms, conditioning and expectancy, in adult participants and patients. Placebo effects by social observational learning have been shown in at least two studies of experimentally induced pain in adult female participants but not in males, in children, and in adolescents. However, direct social effects on the experience and expression of pain in persons of each age have been described frequently.Effects of social learning on the placebo response could also play a crucial role in children and adolescents. In a recent review about placebo effects in children, we concluded that placebo effects in children and adolescents seem to be higher than in adults, but their underlying mechanisms may have different weightings. Especially learning mechanisms seem to play a more important role than own expectations. However, there are only a few studies, and therefore, less knowledge about placebo mechanisms in children and adolescents compared to adults. There is a great many of studies that showed social learning of symptoms in adults who learned from other adults as well as in children who learned from their parents. Hence, it seems reasonable to assume that also symptom reductions can be learned socially, e.g. by observation of positive experiences of other persons or parents in a medical context.Three experiments will examine social effects on the effectiveness of a putative analgesic ointment on heat pain in participants of different age groups. Social learning of placebo effects by observation of familiar and strange persons, live or in a video, will be tested in children, adolescents and adults, and will be compared to placebo effects by verbal suggestions alone. Furthermore, physiological and psychometric measures as potential mediating or moderating variables will be analyzed.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants