A Place For Placebos

Robert McGinley Myers, a recovering audiophile, talks about his former compulsion to buy expensive headphones and accessories in search of the ideal sound system:

[T]he specter that loomed over everything was the idea that this was all some big placebo effect. I would occasionally spend an evening listening to a song on my new set of headphones and then on my old set, or with my new amplifier and then my old amplifier. I would make my wife listen to see if she heard a difference. Sometimes she did, sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes I didn’t. Every once in a while, I’d read a post on Head-fi about someone who was selling everything he’d bought because he realized he was listening to his equipment rather than music. I finally had the same realization and made the same decision. At the time, I felt like a recovering addict, or a victim of a con artist, reformed but slightly ashamed.

Myers reflects on a recent Felix Salmon piece that suggested “instead of sneering at the placebo effect of fancy wine, its marketing, and its slightly higher prices … we should take advantage of it”:

The more you spend on a wine, the more you like it. It really doesn’t matter what the wine is at all. But when you’re primed to taste a wine which you know a bit about, including the fact that you spent a significant amount of money on, then you’ll find things in that bottle which you love … After all, what you see on the label, including what you see on the price tag, is important information which can tell you a lot about what you’re drinking. And the key to any kind of connoisseurship is informed appreciation of something beautiful.

This idea of “informed appreciation” reminds me of another area of modern life beset by placebo effects:

the world of alternative medicine. In a recent article for the Atlantic, David H. Freedman argues that there’s virtually no scientific evidence that alternative medicine (anything from chiropractic care to acupuncture) has any curative benefit beyond a placebo effect. … However, there is one area where alternative medicine often trumps traditional medicine: stress reduction. And stress reduction can, of course, make a huge impact on people’s health. …

Maybe each of these activities (listening to high end audio gear, drinking high end wine, having needles inserted into your chakras) is really about ritualizing a sensory experience. By putting on headphones you know are high quality, or drinking expensive wine, or entering the chiropractor’s office, you are telling yourself, “I am going to focus on this moment. I am going to savor this.” It’s the act of savoring, rather than the savoring tool, that results in both happiness and a longer life.

Previous Dish on the pros and cons of the placebo effect here, here, and here.