Have you ever fed a baby and pretended to eat their food and say, “yum, delicious”, in order to manipulate them to eat thinking that the food is delicious. This phenomenon is not experienced just by kids, but also by grownups!
There are actually a number of studies demonstrating that the benefits of placebo increases when a person has observed someone else benefit from it (E.g. think acupuncture).
However, this interesting study showed that who you observe seems to matter. In one case the person observed an actor who pretended to be a university professor and in another scenario the actor pretended to be a janitor. Fascinatingly, this study concluded…
“…the perception of a model’s social status is related to the magnitude of placebo analgesia induced by observational learning.” – Bieniek et al 2022
Another similar study showed that the degree of benefit experienced from a placebo for pain relief was based on the self-confidence portrayed by the actor being observed. In other words people are more likely to experience placebo pain relief if they observe someone else confidently pretended to achieve pain relief!
Clinical Relevance: When I prescribe exercises, I so often tell my patients with confidence, “I do exercise XYZ myself because it makes me feel great!”