I got to participate in an experiment dealing with chocolate in New York City. I didn’t know what the experiment was until it was over, but I sure did like having to eat chocolate twice a day, everyday for a week. I was so pleased after eating the chocolate that I got New York Broadway tickets for a play which I never do. I even enjoyed the play, which I don’t like theater.
When I found out what the experiment was, I was amazed and stunned. It was a double-blind, placebo controlled, randomized experiment investigating whether chocolate exposed to good-intentional thoughts would enhance mood more than unexposed chocolate. Individuals, like me, were assigned to one of four groups and we were asked to record our moods each day for a week. We had to use the Profile of Mood States, we couldn’t just write down anything we wanted. So, for three, four and five, each person consumed a half-ounce of chocolate twice a day at a certain time of day. Three groups blindly received chocolate that had been intentionally treated by three different thought techniques. The intention in each case was for the people who ate the chocolate would experience a more enhanced sense of vigor, energy and well being. The fourth group blindly received the untreated chocolates as the placebo control.
The hypothesis was that our recorded moods during the three days of eating chocolate would improve more with the intentional groups than in the control group. I was told most participants lived in the same geographical region also. The results on the third day of the experiment was that the moods had improved significantly with the group that received the intentional chocolates than in the
the non-intentional groups. I was informed, after the experiment that I was in the group that received the intentional chocolates. All I can say, is I really did feel so much better during this experiment, but I don’t know if it was because I could eat chocolate twice a day or if it was due to the intention.
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