That’s a twist on my favorite bit of folk wisdom that Judge Milian dispenses daily on The People’s Court, which is, after The Wire and Lost, probably my favorite hour of TV…at least until Doctor Who returns.
Oh yeah, I had a story to tell you about, didn’t I? According to a Boston.com story about a recent study, more expensive wine tastes better–even when it’s the same as the cheap stuff:
SCIENTISTS AT CALTECH and Stanford recently published the results of a peculiar wine tasting. They provided people with cabernet sauvignons at various price points, with bottles ranging from $5 to $90. Although the tasters were told that all the wines were different, the scientists were in fact presenting the same wines at different prices.
The subjects consistently reported that the more expensive wines tasted better, even when they were actually identical to cheaper wines.
The experiment was even more unusual because it was conducted inside a scanner – the drinks were sipped via a network of plastic tubes – that allowed the scientists to see how the subjects’ brains responded to each wine. When subjects were told they were getting a more expensive wine, they observed more activity in a part of the brain known to be involved in our experience of pleasure.
What they saw was the power of expectations. People expect expensive wines to taste better, and then their brains literally make it so. Wine lovers shouldn’t feel singled out: Antonio Rangel, the Caltech neuroeconomist who led the study, insists that he could have used a variety of items to get similar results, from bottled water to modern art.
Grape expectations – The Boston Globe
This study has oodles of implications for the hospitality industry in general and the Las Vegas Strip in particular. If paying more for something lets us enjoy it more, should hotels increase happiness by raising room rates?
And I’m sure there’s some application to gambling, too, with more “expensive” wagers (i.e., higher house edge) yielding a great gambling “rush.” If anyone wants to write a grant to study this, I’d be happy to sign on as a co-investigator.