So, here's the quiz question: Why does an expensive glass of wine taste better than a less expensive glass of wine? Especially when the wine inside is from the same bottle. Sure, you might be thinking that we value items based on price. Expensive restaurants are better than cheap-eats diners, right?
Actually, researchers have found that price actually influences how the product tastes. Antonio Rangel, an associate professor at the California Institute of Technology, wanted to test this idea. According to a Caltech release, Rangel and his team found “…changes in the stated price of a sampled wine influenced not only how good volunteers thought it tasted, but the activity of a brain region that is involved in our experience of pleasure." In other words, "Prices, by themselves, affect activity in an area of the brain that is thought to encode the pleasantness of an experience."
Also involved in the study was Baba Shiv, an Associate Professor of Marketing at Stanford Graduate School of Business. According to University reports, “…studies have shown that marketing can influence how people value goods. For example, Shiv has shown that people who paid a higher price for an energy drink, such as Red Bull, were able to solve more brain teasers than those who paid a discounted price for the same product.”
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