Many studies including randomized medical trials lack adequate control groups, which reduces the quality of the trial results. Experts suggest ensuring better control groups and increasing the overall quality of such studies to improve the validity of psychological tools used during trials.
Expectations can be more powerful than genetics, and creating a placebo effect through the expectation effect can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Scientists need to control as rigorously as possible for external factors that may influence the outcome of their studies. This control is difficult to achieve in behavioral studies, but it is crucial to get to the truth.
The quality of medical trials has been increasing since the latter half of the 20th century, but there is still a need for better controls in studies to ensure that large populations are not committed to ineffective treatments.