Give a Placebo a Try

In this column, we cover how you can use the design of the physical environments in which you and those you care about find yourselves to make desired outcomes more likely—whether those outcomes are studying more effectively and getting better grades, thinking more creatively, having more pleasant conversations with others, or something else entirely. We’ve reviewed the differences that surface colors; the color, intensity, and arrangements of artificial lights; furniture layouts; window, door, and room size and location; ceiling heights; and a range of other factors can make on what goes on in our heads.

Environmental placebos

Research has shown that just as there are placebo effects with medications, there can be placebo effects with environmental conditions. Just as people can physically and mentally feel better after taking totally inert medications (e.g., sugar pills), they can get a boost in well-being or creativity and cognitive performance from, for instance, looking at particular colors or smelling certain scents, if they expect these effects.

If you’re interested in fine-tuning a space for a planned activity or desired outcome but can’t find a specific published study that answers your questions about the sort of environmental conditions that scientists have tied to the situations you’re trying to create, you can decide to build from the findings of related research and to even incorporate placebos into your efforts. When you do use a placebo, presenting a placebo becomes, in many ways, like testing a hypothesis, confirming, potentially, a reasonable extension of previous research.

Every extension has biological and other limits, however. A scent that you have selected to extend previous findings that actually produces one (as yet not scientifically identified) effect on what goes on in our brains—because of sensations conveyed to the brain through the olfactory or trigeminal nerve—is unlikely to produce the opposite effect simply because of a placebo suggestion, for example.

If you are trying to give your child a boost with their schoolwork but can’t find research on scents that are likely to do so, introducing a scent that has been shown to elevate adult knowledge work and making a placebo suggestion could really pay off, report card-wise.

Placebos and the power of expectations

A nocebo is a lot like a placebo, but with a very different outcome; when negative expectations are tied to consuming something or having some other sort of particular experience, negative situations become more likely (those negative-negative links are nocebos). In design, nocebos come into play when people expect to have degraded performance or well-being or something else after being in a particular place or using a certain object; expectations become perceived realities.

When you don’t have the research at your disposal you need, try a science-informed placebo (or nocebo, depending on whether you’re more of a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty kind of person). They may help inch your world closer to your goals.