Warning: consumers smarter than they appear

For years, researchers and psychiatrists and psychologists have been performing studies to show that we consumers aren’t a very bright bunch.

How they loved to laugh when subjects were all given the same wine but told it cost different amounts and, surprise, the price affected what people thought of it. Or when people were able to resist more pain because they believed the pill they were taking (a placebo) was more expensive.

But researchers are aware of a laboratory effect that makes people act differently — i.e. most people don’t drink wine while being monitored by a two-way mirror — so they skew their results. Now, consumers may have the last laugh. 

That’s because two Israeli scientists decided to take long-standing studies about user choices into the actual marketplace.