“A kid could not sleep, he went to see his mother, she used to say him “I’ll give you a magic drink, and then you’ll sleep”, and she gave him water with a bit of sugar (he, of course didn’t know it was sugar), and she mixed it well in front of him, and… it worked !”
Researchers found that the belief over the placebo pill lessens the pain even when it isn’t chemically design to do so, this mistaken belief decreases activation of the amygdala and pain related structures such as the cingulate and the insula while increasing activation of the lateral and medical prefrontal regions. The above phenomenon is called placebo effect, i.e. “a substance or procedure ... that is objectively without specific activity for the condition being treated". Placebo is a terminology used in the medicine science, which deals with human psychology and power of thinking. I am not a medicine student, who can explain you about the placebo effect in details. I am a management student, with hobby of reading and exploring new things from various subjects and trying to connect those things with management science. How placebo is linked to management? There are so many self help books available in market. The first self help book I read was Dr. Norman Vienciet Peal’s “Power of Positive Thinking”, and I never regretted of reading this. As some people said happiness is nothing but our mindset, I am always curious to know how come this thinking, an intangible process, can bring a tangible change to our life?
I am trying to say, Placebo is power of positive thinking, the optimistic power that can heals the suffering.
Positive thinking is always associated with the word expectation, when a patient goes to a doctor, he went with the expectation, the doctor will definitely cure his disease and the medicine given by him will be helpful. This expectation seems more important than the drug given by doctor. One more interesting thing is, the pricier the drug, the higher the expectation of efficacy, and stronger the placebo effect. Here shows the proportionate relationship between price and quality of the product. It is not only applicable in medical science; it is applicable in every field. The branded goods are more expensive than the unbranded goods though the quality and design is same.
From the above paragraph three headings come into my mind: 1. Placebo and expectation, 2. Importance of pricing, and 3. Trust.
Placebo and expectation:
In service marketing it says, when your customer exceeds its expectation he is a satisfied customer. It simply means, the only secret mantra for excellent customer service is fulfilling and exceeding customer’s expectation. (I don’t want to go deeper here, identifying the expectations is also a vast subject). Expectation is universal process, applicable in every fields. Since there is no free lunch, there is no action without expectation hiding in the back. Be it love, helping, whatever the action is, there is always an expectation. Is goal a part of expectation?
Importance of pricing:
We always think, the higher the price the better the quality. It is the theory which gives chance to the marketers to fool the customers. The perceived value increases along with the price. The free service, though it is the novelist thing, many a time it does not get excellence, because people do not give importance in it, they take it lightly. It may be the reason why the government schools in our state (where the fee is very less) does not perform well, in spite of having all kind of infrastructure and facilities.
Trust:
I don’t want to say much about it. Everyone knows how much important it is. There is no happiness, no relation, no action, and no success without it. We would not have existed if trust is not there. We just need it.
In conclusion, why placebo? Because we become what we think, not what we eat. We live with incomplete knowledge; there are so many things we do not know. Every day we are encountered with some miracles. Thinking good will obviously will bring good news to us. Expecting best will always bring best result to us. The pain and hard work we put is a price without it, the life would not have any value. The trust, let us live with it.
No comments:
Post a Comment