Rebecca Waber

Rebecca Waber

Researcher and first author of the 2008 JAMA study in which a placebo described as expensive was reported to relieve pain better than a cheap one.

Who they are

Waber is the first author, with Shiv, Carmon and Ariely, of a short research letter in JAMA in 2008. Volunteers received mild electric shocks to the wrist before and after taking a pill presented as a new painkiller, which was inert. According to Stanford Graduate School of Business's summary of the study, 85 per cent of those who believed they had the expensive pill reported less pain, against 61 per cent of those given the cheap version.

The Choice Factory carries the study in its chapter on Veblen goods, at pages 141 to 142, and credits Waber as first author, a detail often lost when the study is attributed to its best-known co-author.

Key papers

Waber, R. L., Shiv, B., Carmon, Z., & Ariely, D. (2008). "Commercial features of placebo and therapeutic efficacy." JAMA, 299(9), 1016-1017. doi:10.1001/jama.299.9.1016.

Key ideas

See Placebo Effect and Veblen Goods.

Sources

  1. Waber, Shiv, Carmon and Ariely (2008), PubMed record and Stanford Graduate School of Business summary read, 12 October 2026; the full text could not be opened.
  2. Shotton, R. (2018), The Choice Factory, Bias 21, pp. 141 to 142, read in full by this publication.