The way that I came up with the name, was that someone was suggesting that my taking metrics might create a placebo effect, where people would believe that they were doing better than they actually were.
So, my response to this was that I was not trying to create a placebo effect, but rather, to avoid a placebo effect in the opposite direction.
So while I agree with you that this effect is not an opposite (why I referred to it as related instead of reverse), I do think that it is the opposite of what a lot of people fear—that they are experiencing a placebo effect.
In short, people being afraid of having a placebo effect is often how this effect comes to be—they don’t want to create false hope and then have it dissipate, so instead they refuse to believe or acknowledge real positive results when they see them.
So, I would say that the title is reasonable regarding people’s expectations, but not in the precise using of the term placebo sense. Personally, I think that expectations are more important for titling. Fewer people will pay attention to a precisely named definition that they know nothing about, whereas calling it the anti-placebo effect grabs attention—specifically the attention of people who have this bias.
The way that I came up with the name, was that someone was suggesting that my taking metrics might create a placebo effect, where people would believe that they were doing better than they actually were.
So, my response to this was that I was not trying to create a placebo effect, but rather, to avoid a placebo effect in the opposite direction.
So while I agree with you that this effect is not an opposite (why I referred to it as related instead of reverse), I do think that it is the opposite of what a lot of people fear—that they are experiencing a placebo effect.
In short, people being afraid of having a placebo effect is often how this effect comes to be—they don’t want to create false hope and then have it dissipate, so instead they refuse to believe or acknowledge real positive results when they see them.
So, I would say that the title is reasonable regarding people’s expectations, but not in the precise using of the term placebo sense. Personally, I think that expectations are more important for titling. Fewer people will pay attention to a precisely named definition that they know nothing about, whereas calling it the anti-placebo effect grabs attention—specifically the attention of people who have this bias.