Mind over matter goes a long way. Reports of intoxication occurring merely through the power of suggestion and not through alcohol ingestion appear from time to time.
An early example of this is a 19th century incident in the US state of Maine.
A logging camp was stocked with bottles of vanilla extract containing alcohol. Workers at the camp would occasionally break into the camp's stores, drink the vanilla extract and become intoxicated. Eventually, the logging camp managers changed to stocking bottles of vanilla extract not containing alcohol. The workers still occasionally broke into the stores, still drank the vanilla extract and still got intoxicated – without alcohol!
Mind over matter can happen with non-alcoholic drinks too. "What you think may be as important as what you drink," according to Dr Andrew Scholey, a professor of psychopharmacology at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle in the UK.
Dr Scholey reported to the British Psychological Society in 2000 on his study of the psychological effects upon drinkers of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee. As everyone is told, caffeinated coffee makes you stay awake and keeps you more alert. Decaffeinated coffee supposedly does not.
Dr Scholey and research colleagues conducted a simple experiment, with test subjects being given coffee then taking a computerised test.
Without being informed, the subjects were divided into four groups (A1, A2, B1, B2). Those in group A1 were told they were getting caffeinated coffee and were given it. Those in group A2 were told they were getting caffeinated coffee but were given decaf. Those in group B1 were told they were getting decaf and were given it. Those in group B2 were told they were getting decaf but were given caffeinated coffee.
The researchers found that, as predicted, subjects who drank caffeinated coffee were faster and more accurate on the computerised test – but only if they thought they had been given caffeinated coffee.
Subjects who drank caffeinated coffee but thought it was decaf performed less well.
Most interesting of all, subjects who thought they had drunk caffeinated coffee, but in reality had drunk decaf, performed on the tests as if they had really had drunk caffeinated coffee.
Thus, what you think is real can be more important than what is real. Mind over matter goes a long way.
Stephen Juan, PhD is an anthropologist and Faculty Fellow in Human Sciences at the University of Sydney, Australia.
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