Placebo

a simulated or otherwise medically ineffectual treatment for a disease or other medical condition intended to deceive the recipient. Sometimes patients given a placebo treatment will have a perceived or actual improvement in a medical condition, a phenomenon commonly called the placebo effect. In medical research, placebos are given as control treatments and depend on the use of measured deception. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo

cf

• Scientific Method
• Cargo Cult
• Hawthorne Effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
• Nocebo effect: the term for when patient expectations do harm, rather than good. "When a patient anticipates a pill’s possible side effects, he can suffer them even if the pill is fake."
• I dub "mecebo effect": well I feel better - often associated with change your organization activities, when the change is actually insignificant, but the agency vibes of being on the committee make you think you're helping