Expectation and Experience: The Wine Taste Test
In the latest over-reported neuro-science news, there’s a gem of insight the mainstream media is over looking: our beliefs and expectations can and do impact how we experience the world around us.
The study itself is pretty simple - take identical bottles of wine, slap on price tags ranging from $10 to $90, and measure people’s brain activity while they sample and rate the wines according to preference. (The actual details were a little more complicated than that, but, hey, you’ve got the idea)
The general results aren’t too surprising: people preferred the wines with the more expensive price tags, regardless of the actual value of the wines. Marketing experts have known this for a long time, and any number of tests have been done to confirm it, and it’s this aspect that the media seems to be focused on.
“Consumers are shallow and easily fooled,” seems to be the message, but the brain scans revealed something deeper than simple consumer-snobbery.
The participants didn’t just have a vague impression that pricier wines were better; their brains actually registered more pleasure when they sampled what they believed were better quality wines. The activity in the brain’s taste centers were not affected by the price tags, but the areas that process pleasure showed stronger activity associated with the wines that were believed to be more expensive.
In other words, the wines didn’t actually taste better to the brain, but the experience was more pleasurable.
Back to the gem of info that’s being overlooked here?
Because the research subjects expected certain wines to be more pleasurable than others, they experienced them as more pleasurable. And they didn’t just slap mental labels of “better” or “worse” onto their reactions to the wine, they *experienced* them differently.
So …
What we expect to experience really can change our experience: and not in some magical, mystical way, ala “The Secret” but in measurable terms, via various brain scanning technologies, accepted by real scientists.
Pretty powerful stuff, isn’t it?
I do believe I’m drunk on the knowledge!
In a very pricey way, of course.
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MINDTWEAK: “I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path” -Dalai Lama
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Harumph! Back in my drinking days I always preferred researching and finding fine tasting wine and champagnes that were budget priced and outperformed their more expensive cousins.
Snobbery from a different perspective, eh? ; )
Hi, Shogun!
Oddly enough, I was thinking about the pleasure found in “bargain hunting” as I wrote this post… the perception of value isn’t just limited to price, but to the entire “set and setting” that creates the expectation of pleasure.
On another point, I think reverse snobbery is likely to become all the rage in America, I think, with the eco-green movement becoming popular and the economy faltering under the living-beyond-our-means habits we’ve picked up.
Things could get interesting…