Pill Texture and Color: Facilitators for Participant Responses on Forms of Treatment

There are many different types of medically-prescribed pills with many shapes and colors, and research indicates that some of specific colors and shapes are associated with the treatment of specific disorders. In fact, specific placebo effects are commonly-associated with specific colored-shape pills. The current study is designed to examine the influence of pill color and texture on participant’s perception of the medical use of pills. A within-subjects experiment included 100 undergraduate students from the Psychology Department of a liberal arts college in Central Virginia. Three pill colors (red, green, and white) and two pill texture conditions were used (textured: letters and numbers or non-textured: no writing on pills). There were six pictures of pills shown on a questionnaire given to participants, and each of the pills included the following question written nearby: What type of disorder would this pill treat? Participants could answer this question in one of three ways: Physical Disorder, Psychological Disorder, or Neither. The current hypothesis is that both white-textured and non-textured pills will be associated with treating psychological disorders; the colored-textured pills (red and green) will be associated with treating physical disorders; and the colored non-textured pills will be associated with treating neither disorder