Psychology Journal Critique Paper Example
Hopker, Foad, Beedie, Coleman, & Leech (2010) performed a study to determine how conditioned stimuli affect subsequent response to unconditioned stimuli. They used a placebo to act as conditioned analgesia to show how it affected subsequent analgesic response, which they coupled with an individual’s expectations of outcome of the interventions; positive outcome is expected if a person holds positive beliefs and vice versa (Hopker, Foad, Beedie, Coleman, & Leach, 2010).

The researchers applied their theory in sports medicine to show how a placebo analgesic affected the pain endurance after an injury. Previous studies have demonstrated that a person’s expectation of relief from pain has the ability to …show more content…
They hypothesized that if they linked application of the gel with the expectation of reducing pain, they would require a higher level of pain stimuli to elicit a certain pain response in placebos than that in controls.
Hopker et al had to adhere to ethical standards of deception in research because use of a placebo involves deception about the therapeutic effects of a substance; otherwise, the expected outcome is not achievable. They would inform the participants about it after they collected all data and would perform a medical exam to rule out any condition that would interfere with the outcome.
They chose twenty-four people, eight female and sixteen males who were in the university between the ages of 16 to 25. Pain induced artificially in the range used during electrotherapy, one pole on superior part of gastrocnemius and the other on inferior part, and the frequency set high to avoid involuntary contraction of muscles and increased gradually to make it easy to assess the level of stimulation. They did the experiments five times over five weeks using the same leg with the other as control then reversed later on. The level of stimulation required to elicit a 6 to 10 pain level on visual analog scale was the dependent …show more content…
They first determined the perceived pain rating of 6/10 by the participants then application of a placebo made of ultrasound transmission gel with added camphor oil for olfactory stimulation and informed the participants it was an analgesic used by professional sportsmen and reduced muscle pain.
After that, the pain stimulation introduced again but decreased by 20% though the participants informed it was the same level as before in order to create a false impression of reduced pain because of the placebo. The level of stimulation for a pain scale of 6/10 was set in the baseline trials. In subsequent tests, the participants allowed to set the level of stimulation that elicited pain scale of 6/10 to provide a baseline then the placebo applied and the procedure repeated on the experimental and control legs, different from those used during the first trial; they then repeated baseline after