The Golfer Performance May Be the Result of A Placebo Effect Essay

 

 

Exercise: “Find the 3^rd variable…”

For the following research scenarios, determine potential problems for drawing inferences regarding ‘cause and effect’ relationships. No research design is ever perfect. In the examples below, there are some issues that the investigators would have to deal with in order to have confidence in drawing conclusions about their research.

Example 1
A professional golfer suffers from chronic back pain.A friend suggested he try wearing a copper bracelet, as copper is absorbed through the skin and converted to another compound that exerts an anti-inflammatory (i.e., pain-relieving) action. After a particularly painful week, he tried wearing a copper bracelet to alleviate the pain. He then noticed that his scores improved the following week and he felt better. The golfer concluded that the copper bracelet helped this game by reducing his pain.
What is a simpler, default explanation for what the golfer experienced?

 

Example 2

Sleeping with one’s shoes on is strongly correlated with waking up with a headache.

Do you think that if you decide to sleep with your shoes on you are more likely to wake up with a headache? What are some possible explanations for this relationship?

 

 

 

 

Example 3

As ice cream sales increase, the rate of drowning deaths in children increases sharply.

If towns banned the sale of ice cream near public pools, do you think the frequency of drowning would decrease?What are some possible explanations for this relationship?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Example 4

A study conducted in Taiwan attempted to identify variables that best predicted the use of birth control—a question of interest to researchers because of overpopulation problems in Taiwan. They collected data on various behavioral and environmental variables and found that the number of appliances in the home was strongly and positively related to contraceptive use. This means that individuals who had more appliances in their home tended to use contraceptives more than those with fewer appliances (e.g., televisions, toaster, etc).

Do you think that if the government incentivized the purchase of appliances that would promote contraceptive use and reduce overpopulation?

How could the researchers turn this correlational study into an experimental study, to provide a stronger test of the cause-effect relationship between appliances and contraceptive use? Outline what such an experiment would look like.