How being swindled can make you feel better

[muriel_volestrangler]

Like anyone with any faith in humankind, you rail against the professionalisation of common sense: because however much the seedier targets of this column might enjoy spending their customers' money, baubles are impermanent. We're not interested in consumer issues. The greater crime is that quacks and miracle pill merchants disempower us; and, moreover, that we love it when they do.
...
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March subjected 82 healthy subjects to painful electric shocks and, in a lengthy and authoritative leaflet, offered them pain relief in the form of a pill which was described as being similar to codeine, but with a faster onset. In fact, it was just a placebo, a pill with no medicine; a sugar pill. The pain relief was significantly stronger when subjects were told the tablet cost $2.50 than when they were told it cost 10c.

Even better is a paper published in January in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Volunteers tasted and rated five wines, each individually priced, although in fact there were only three different wines, and two were tasted twice: once labelled at $90 a bottle, and once at $10. The results were clear: cheap wine really does taste better simply because we are told it's expensive.

More than that, when participants tasted the "more expensive" wine, brain scans showed increased activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex and its surrounding area, the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, in the frontal lobes. I'm pretty sceptical about the merits of this kind of brain imaging research, but I will mention that the orbitofrontal cortex has previously been activated in studies looking at ratings of pleasantness of music and smells.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/14/humanbehaviour

[varkam]

1. We tend to judge the value of things based on how expensive they are.

I read a book by Robert Cialdini a few months back on persuasion, wherein he related an anecdote of a shop owner trying to sell some jewelry. It wouldn't sell for weeks, and so instead of dropping the price, the owner increased the price by double! Wouldn't you know it if within the next week, they sold.

We really are funny creatures.

[CanSocDem]

2. Ya think....????

First thing you know someone is going to come along and sell you something that should be free.

Public health comes to mind....



.

[varkam]

4. Not gonna bite.

By the way, even in countries with socialized medicine it's not free. It's paid for by an increase in tax.

:hi:

[CanSocDem]

7. "public health' is a concept...

...that includes such things as workplace safety, clean environment and social services. If your taxes don't already provide these things, I can see how easy it would be to get you to pay somebody for them.




.

[varkam]

8. Even still, they are not free - are they? eom

[LeftishBrit]

3. Very true!

Tom Sawyer used a similar principle to get his friends to whitewash the fence for him.

And a lot of research indicates that the more people have invested in a belief or decision, the more firmly they are inclined to stick to it.

As regards the specific situation of medicines, it's not just financial expense: it's also my impression that British people and perhaps others have traditionally tended to assume that the nastier a medicine tastes, the better it is for you! It would be interesting to test this out through research; though the fact that medicines nowadays tend to be taken in tablet form may have reduced this attitude.

[varkam]

5. Exactly.

Cognitive dissonance explains such principles very well. If you spend $500 on something that is actually worth $25, you tend to think that you paid that much money because it is high quality - more so than if you just spent the $25 on it. Think of it this way - if you've just shelled out that much money for what is essentially a crappy trinket you're left with a dilemma. You're thinking "Why did I spend that much money on something this worthless?" That state is cognitive dissonance, and we'll do just about anything to reduce it - including believing that what we just bought is of a high quality. Of course, that is ad hoc but I'm guessing that the principle holds before you actually shell it out.

As regards the specific situation of medicines, it's not just financial expense: it's also my impression that British people and perhaps others have traditionally tended to assume that the nastier a medicine tastes, the better it is for you! It would be interesting to test this out through research; though the fact that medicines nowadays tend to be taken in tablet form may have reduced this attitude.

That's an interesting idea, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if it would be supported by research.

[Orrex]

6. I read that subject line twice, and I could have sworn that it said

"How being swaddled can make you feel better."