Placebo Effect: In the Suite Life On Deck

•What all placebos have in common is that they do not affect persons health in anyway.

What is a Placebo?• A Placebo is anything that is perceived as “real”

medical treatment.

• It could be anything from a sugar pill to a shot that is a type of “fake” Medical treatment.

•A phenomenon in which participants taking a placebo react as if they were receiving treatment, simply because they believe they are receiving treatment.

• The responses of the placebo can be positive or negative.

WHAT IS THE PLACEBO EFFECT?

• Most common theories is that the placebo effect is due to a person’s expectations. If a person expects an outcome from a pill, then it’s possible that the body’s own chemistry can cause effects similar to what a medication might do.

• Example: -For instance a subject with sleeping abnormalities would be given a placebo pill with the impression that it’s a sleeping pill. The subjects results may be that they had gotten more sleep thanks to the “pill”. But in all actuality that placebo had no effect on the subjects sleep.

How does it work?

• Zack and Cody are twin brothers who live and attend school in a cruise ship while traveling the world.• Cody is smart, wimpy twin

while Zack is more dimwitted but athletic and social.

CodyZack

•Bailey is a smart girl from a small farm town. She is also Cody’s girlfriend.

•London on the other hand is a rich, spoil, and dimwitted girl.

Bailey London

• Bailey and Cody are doing homework while London walks in on them and she states that she is not a good student.

Connection

• As soon as she leaves, Bailey makes a bet with Cody, in which she proposes that she can help London get at least a B on her next final.

• Bailey tries to tutor London the old fashion way and finds it a lot more difficult than she had anticipated.

Connection

• Bailey later comes up with the idea to offer London a “magic brain” perfume that’ll make her smarter. But in reality it’s just regular perfume.

• Instead of getting her usually D’s and F’s on her test, London ends up getting a C+. Thanks to her “Magic Brain” perfume.

Connection

• Because of her new perfume London feels much smarter and begins to dress the part. And she actually begins to study.

• Not being able to study on her own, London wasn’t capable of passing the tests with good scores by herself. But when she used her placebo perfume she believed that it would actually make her smart.

Conclusion

• Because she thought she was getting smarter she began to study and act differently based on her new found intelligence.

• Now I don’t believe it would have worked this way because a ‘magic brain” perfume is a little far fetched for anyone to believe. But in the show it did do what a placebo is intended to do.

•While studying with Bailey, Cody states what the placebo effect is. Saying, “Its what happens when you give someone a sugar pill and tell them it’s medicine and because they believe it will help them, it does”.

• Now most of what he said is true but the placebos don’t always work and effects vary too. And it doesn’t always have to be a sugar pill just any type of perceived medical treatment.

Validity

• http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/what-is-the-placebo-effect• For more information on the placebo effect.

•Class Notes.

•Suite Life on Deck. Sn. 2 Ep.4 Smarticle Particles

Reference