For a couple of decades now, social psychologists and behavioral economists have been amusing themselves manipulating consumers into doing odd things. They’ve delighted in debunking the notion of homo economicus, that theoretical creature who rationally seeks maximum economic utility.
Old-fashioned cost-conscious consumers would react to a price increase by lowering demand for the product, but we sometimes do just the opposite. We want to buy more of it because we assume it must be a better product — and we’re so thoroughly fooled that our bodies even respond differently to it.
