How could I do an experiment to show the Placaebo effect?

Question

Its for a National Science exhibition.

It doesnt matter if someone has already done one.

Thanks

Answer 1

Poison ivy research (or any mildly irritating but otherwise harmless plant). Get some people to cooperate to being stung by poison ivy with the lie like, "Does the color of your hair effect the rash when stung by poison ivy", When testing, make sure that half of your subjects are rubbed by the real thing, the other half gets a rub from a harmless plant. Make sure that the groups are equal, like for every white person stung, make sure there is a white person in the placebo group. If people from the harmless group start developing a rash, (and the plant was truly harmless) you will have demonstrated the placebo effect.

Answer 2

It's easy to design, but hard for an individual to conduct.  You need a large stream of individuals complaining of symptoms, and an objective way of evaluating their improvement.  Here's one you might actually be able to do.  People come in complaining of a headache.  Explain your study, and that they will be randomly selected for one of three treatment options:

(1) 8 ounces of water in which two aspirin tablets are dissolved.

(2) 8 ounces of plain, untreated water.

(3) 8 ounces of plain, untreated water, where you tell and show them it's plain water.  Hand them a sealed bottle of commercially bottled water and have them open it and drink 8 ounces.

Ask them to record, before treatment and every 30 minutes, their headache pain level on a scale of 0 to 10.  Any statistically significant difference between (2) and (3) can be attributed to a placebo effect.

That covers only part of the placebo effect.  Some say that a factor in the effect is just that someone is paying attention to them.