作者：Economist.com 出處：天下雜誌 389期 2008/01
根據加州理工學院的蘭赫爾博士(Antonio Rangel)的一篇研究指出：如果飲酒者被告之所喝的酒較為昂貴，那麼他們會真的認為，該酒的味道較其他便宜的酒味道更好，而不僅是口頭上這樣說說而已。
蘭赫爾掃描了20名志願者飲酒時的大腦狀態。在啜飲的同時，受測者被告之所提供的是價格介於5元到90元美金的五種紅酒。然而實際上只有三種葡萄酒，其中兩種酒分別以兩種不同的價格，提供給受測者品嘗。
掃描結果顯示，被告之的酒價格，影響受測者的腦部活動反應。例如，當一瓶實際零售價格為90元的葡萄酒被告之只值10元時，它被評等為不如90元葡萄酒的一半好。
為何如此？至少有兩種可能性。
第一，學習的目的在增進個人生存和繁殖的機率；如果他人的經驗和意見對此能有所助益將更好。蘭赫爾懷疑，他可能發現了一種迅速和有效率判斷的學習機制。在現代社會中，價格可能是這種人類集體智慧的一個好代表。
第二，有許多高價位商品，人們是為了炫耀而購買。事實上，擺闊和浪費是社會展示行為的一個重要成分；若操作得當，可能贏得地位和更好的來往機會。當展示者真心地認為該項商品真的較好，而不僅只是價格昂貴時，會更具成效。
無論那一種解釋是正確的(可能兩種都對)，對零售商，行銷公司和精品生產者而言，這項研究暗示了：一個成功的行銷活動，不僅可以使人們對該產品更感興趣，而且真的可讓客戶更能享受該產品。
World retail: Pricing and the brain
From The Economist Intelligence Unit
Published on Jan 18th, 2008
People do not just say they enjoy expensive things more than cheap ones. They actually do enjoy them more
EVERYONE loves a bargain. But retailers know that people will sometimes turn their noses up at a cheap version of a more expensive item, even if the two are essentially the same. That suggests something is at work in the mind of the consumer beyond simple appreciation of a product's intrinsic qualities.
The something in question is expectation, according to research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Antonio Rangel of the California Institute of Technology. Dr Rangel and his colleagues found that if people are told a wine is expensive while they are drinking it, they really do think it tastes nicer than a cheap one, rather than merely saying that they do.
Dr Rangel came to this conclusion by scanning the brains of 20 volunteers while giving them sips of wine. He used a trick called functional magnetic-resonance imaging, which can detect changes in the blood flow in parts of the brain that correspond to increased mental activity. He looked in particular at the activity of the medial orbitofrontal cortex. This is an area of the brain that previous experiments have shown is responsible for registering pleasant experiences.
Dr Rangel gave his volunteers sips of what he said were five different wines made from cabernet sauvignon grapes, priced at between $5 and $90 a bottle. He told each of them the price of the wine in question as he did so. Except, of course, that he was fibbing. He actually used only three wines. He served up two of them twice at different prices.
What is truth?
The scanner showed that the activity of the medial orbitofrontal cortices of the volunteers increased in line with the stated price of the wine. For example, when one of the wines was said to cost $10 a bottle it was rated less than half as good as when people were told it cost $90 a bottle, its true retail price. Moreover, when the team carried out a follow-up blind tasting without price information they got different results. The volunteers reported differences between the three "real" wines but not between the same wines when served twice.
Nor was the effect confined to everyday drinkers. When Dr Rangel repeated the experiment on members of the Stanford University wine club he got similar results. All of which raises the question of what is going on.
There are at least two possibilities. The point of learning is to improve an individual's chances of surviving and reproducing: if the experience and opinions of others can be harnessed to that end, so much the better. Dr Rangel suspects that what he has found is a mechanism for learning quickly what has helped others in the past, and thus for allowing choices about what is nice and what is nasty to be made speedily and efficiently. In modern society, price is probably a good proxy for such collective wisdom.
However, goods can be desirable for a reason other than survival value. Many of the things for which high price is an enhancement are purchased in order to show off, as any male confronted with the wine list in a fancy restaurant knows. Indeed, conspicuous consumption and waste are an important part of social display. Deployed properly, they bring the rewards of status and better mating opportunities. For this to work, though, it helps if the displaying individual really believes that what he is buying is not only more expensive than the alternative, but better, too. Truly enjoying something simply because it is exclusive thus makes evolutionary sense.
Besides its role in giving cachet to wine, this may be the explanation for the sort of modern art that leaves the man in the street cold. Art collecting is a high-status activity par excellence. Many lowlier mortals regard it as pretentious. If Dr Rangel is right, though, pretence may not be the true explanation. The collector who has paid millions for a plain-coloured canvas or a pickled sheep probably really does think it is beautiful.
Whichever explanation is correct (and both might be), Dr Rangel's research also has implications for retailers, marketing firms and luxury-goods producers. It suggests that a successful marketing campaign can not only make people more interested in a product, but also, truly, make them enjoy it more.
