Could it be that humans are not quite as gullible as advertised?

    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.

    If you give people a placebo and tell them it's a painkiller costing $2.50, they can withstand painful shocks better than if they're told the pill costs a dime. Give them an energy drink at a discount price, and they'll perform worse on subsequent tests than if they pay full price. If you tell them the wine they're tasting costs $90 a bottle, then the reward centers of their brains will light up more than if you tell them it's a $10 bottle.

    But suppose, instead of scanning people's brains as they're sipping wine in a laboratory, you tested them in a more realistic situation: a restaurant where they're spending their own money. That challenge was undertaken at an upscale restaurant in Tel Aviv by two behavioral economists, Ori Heffetz of Cornell and Moses Shayo of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who expected to be able to manipulate diners' choices by changing the prices on the menu.

    Unbeknownst to the diners or to their waiters, the economists monitored the choices of people who ordered from the prix fixe menu. The three-course meal cost included a choice of five entrees: shrimp gnocchi, pork shank, red mullet fillet, sausage or stuffed artichoke.

    Next to each of these entrees on the menu, in parentheses, was the cost of what it would cost to order that entree from the à la carte menu. These prices didn't affect the cost of the prix fixe meal, which was the equivalent of $30 no matter what the entree, but the researchers expected just the sight of the prices to make a difference. If the mullet were listed at $20 and the other entrees were $17, more people would presumably be enticed into ordering the seemingly more valuable fish.

    But after three months of testing various combinations of prices, the researchers found they couldn't sway the customers. Putting a higher price on the shrimp or any other entree didn't make people more likely to order it.

    This same stubbornly independent streak was manifest in another food experiment by the same researchers. This time they let people sample two kinds of candies - peanut butter bars and caramels - and varied the sticker prices for each one.

    Superficially, the manipulation seemed to work, because people said they would be willing to pay more for a candy if it had a higher sticker price, but that was just in answer to a hypothetical question. When people were given a chance to pick a bag of candy to take home, they pretty much ignored the sticker prices and chose what they liked.

    Why weren't people duped into favoring the high-priced candies and entrees? Why did they follow their own tastes?

    "Maybe, sometimes, old-fashioned economics is just about right," Dr. Shayo says. "Maybe when it comes to food, people do have reasonably stable preferences. Some people like shrimp and some don't, even if it's worth a lot of money."

    The researchers don't deny that consumers can be swayed by variations in sticker prices in laboratory experiments. But they question how significant that factor is in real-world settings where prices can't be inflated so extremely, like the Tel Aviv restaurant. "Size is everything," Dr. Heffetz says. "Our findings remind us that knowing that 'A has a positive effect on B' is not enough. The effect may simply be too small to matter."

    The size-matters effect seemed to show up in a much less rigorous bit of research conducted at my TierneyLab blog with the help of Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico. In his new book, "Spent: Sex, Evolution and Consumer Behavior" （Viking）, he argues that humans often waste money because of the unconscious - and mistaken - belief that our costly stuff will signal our intelligence and sterling personality traits to potential mates and allies.

    As an exercise, Dr. Miller asked readers of the blog to list the 10 most expensive things they had ever bought, and then list the 10 purchases that had brought them the most happiness. More than 200 responded. As we expected, many people rued spending lots of money for stuff that hadn't brought them joy. Boats seemed to have particularly low utility in delivering happiness per dollar; many cars fit that category, too, and so did many expensive weddings.

    But we were struck by how much overlap there was between the most-expensive list and the most-happy list. People repeatedly included on both lists their homes, their college education, their vacation trips, their high-priced electronics （large-screen televisions, Blu-Ray player, audio equipment, computers） and certain models of cars （BMW 325, Audi A4, Jaguar, Subaru WRX, Toyota Prius, Honda Civic）.

    Indeed, the first trend that Dr. Miller identified was the match between the happiness and expense lists. Some of this may have been because of postpurchase rationalization, but a lot of buyers seemed to be suffering anything but remorse. As one reader, Janet Hubbs, put it:

    "The three things （not necessities） I have spent the most money on in the past ten years are: my cottage at Cape Cod, my Lexus, and my Rolex - and I LOVE all three, in the order of their cost. And I don't care what that says about me."

    花多少錢(qián)能買(mǎi)到快樂(lè)呢？

    也許人們并不是那么容易被廣告騙到？

    過(guò)去幾十年來(lái)，社會(huì)心理學(xué)家和行為經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家們一直為能操控消費(fèi)者作出種種蠢事而自鳴得意。他們?yōu)槟茏C明制度經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)中理性經(jīng)濟(jì)人尋求經(jīng)濟(jì)效用最大化是錯(cuò)誤的而沾沾自喜。

    如果物價(jià)上升了，那么傳統(tǒng)的以價(jià)格為重的消費(fèi)者會(huì)減小自己對(duì)該商品的需求。但是，受"一等價(jià)錢(qián)一等貨"的影響，有時(shí)我們反而會(huì)買(mǎi)的更多。我們不僅腦袋被騙了，連身體反應(yīng)都會(huì)因此改變。

    比如，如果你給一個(gè)人一劑安慰劑，但卻跟他說(shuō)這是一片值2.5美元的止疼片，那他吃了以后肯定覺(jué)得身體也不是那么疼了。但如果你告訴他，這只值10美分，他又會(huì)覺(jué)得劇痛難耐了。又比如，人們按全價(jià)買(mǎi)的運(yùn)動(dòng)飲料會(huì)讓他們表現(xiàn)神勇，但如果是打折買(mǎi)的，他們的表現(xiàn)就會(huì)大打折扣。再比如，人們飲酒時(shí)，如果你告訴他們這酒價(jià)值90美元，那他們肯定會(huì)對(duì)這就贊譽(yù)有加，可如果你告訴他們這只值10美元呢？

    除了在實(shí)驗(yàn)室里掃描飲酒人的腦部反應(yīng)外，設(shè)想一下，如果我們?cè)谝粋�(gè)更真實(shí)的場(chǎng)景里測(cè)試他們，比如在餐館里自掏腰包就餐時(shí)情況又會(huì)是怎樣的呢？來(lái)自康奈爾的Ori Heffetz和耶路撒冷希伯萊大學(xué)的Moses Shayo兩位行為經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家在特拉維夫高級(jí)餐廳進(jìn)行了一項(xiàng)實(shí)驗(yàn)，他們希望能通過(guò)改變菜單價(jià)格來(lái)操控食客們的選擇。

    在對(duì)食客和侍者的情況都不了解的條件下，兩位經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家觀察記錄了人們點(diǎn)套餐時(shí)的選擇。套餐有三道菜，其中主食有五種可供選擇：蝦球、豬腿肉、紅鯔魚(yú)排、香腸以及洋薊菜泥。為了讓價(jià)格有個(gè)對(duì)比，研究者在五種菜旁的括號(hào)里標(biāo)出了他們單點(diǎn)時(shí)的單價(jià)。而這些單價(jià)是不會(huì)影響套餐的價(jià)格的，因?yàn)椴还茳c(diǎn)什么，套餐都是30美元。根據(jù)研究者的推測(cè)，如果鯔魚(yú)排標(biāo)價(jià)20美元，而其他菜標(biāo)價(jià)17美元，那么人們更愿意選擇相對(duì)較貴的魚(yú)排。

    但是三個(gè)月過(guò)去了，研究者們發(fā)現(xiàn)：不管怎么改變價(jià)格組合，他們都無(wú)法左右食客們的選擇。人們不會(huì)因?yàn)槲r球或其他某一道菜的價(jià)格高就點(diǎn)它。

    兩位經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家又進(jìn)行一次食物測(cè)試，可是，這次的結(jié)果還是和他們的預(yù)期南轅北轍。在這次實(shí)驗(yàn)中，他們讓人們?cè)陲嵦呛突ㄉ�黃油棒棒糖兩種價(jià)格不一的糖中做出選擇。

    從表面上看，價(jià)格操控奏效了：實(shí)驗(yàn)參與者稱，他們會(huì)買(mǎi)價(jià)格更高的糖。但是，這只是"紙上談兵"罷了。當(dāng)研究者們要他們買(mǎi)一袋糖時(shí)，人們卻不顧價(jià)格而是按著自己的口味買(mǎi)了。

    人們?yōu)槭裁床皇芨邇r(jià)糖果和主菜的誘惑？為什么跟著自己的口味走呢？

    Shayo博士解釋道："有時(shí)候，也許傳統(tǒng)經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)說(shuō)的在理。人們對(duì)食物都有固定的偏好。就像有人喜歡蝦子；有人不喜歡，即使它很貴。"

    在實(shí)驗(yàn)室條件下消費(fèi)者是會(huì)受價(jià)格變化影響的。對(duì)此，研究人員非常肯定。但他們提出這樣一個(gè)疑問(wèn)，即在象特拉維夫餐館一樣的現(xiàn)實(shí)世界里，物價(jià)是不可能亂漲的，那么價(jià)格對(duì)人的影響有多大呢？heffetz博士說(shuō)："關(guān)鍵是大小。我們的實(shí)驗(yàn)告訴我們光知道'甲對(duì)乙有正影響'是不夠的，因?yàn)檫@種影響可能微不足道。"

    筆者和杰弗里米勒進(jìn)行了一個(gè)放寬條件的研究，其中也涉及了影響大小的問(wèn)題。這個(gè)研究登在了在我的tierney實(shí)驗(yàn)室博客中。杰弗里米勒是新墨西哥大學(xué)的一名進(jìn)化心理學(xué)家，在他的新書(shū)《消費(fèi)：性別、進(jìn)化和消費(fèi)者行為》中，他講到人們之所以花大價(jià)錢(qián)買(mǎi)東西是因?yàn)樗麄儫o(wú)意識(shí)地或錯(cuò)誤地認(rèn)為我們買(mǎi)的東西越貴，越能讓我們周圍的人感到我們的智力或者品格很高。

    米勒博士做了個(gè)小測(cè)試。他要我們博客的讀者列出自己曾買(mǎi)過(guò)的最貴的10樣?xùn)|西還有最讓自己買(mǎi)后覺(jué)得快樂(lè)的10樣?xùn)|西。有200多人參與了測(cè)試。正如我們所料，很多人覺(jué)得很后悔，他們花了很多錢(qián)卻沒(méi)得到快樂(lè)。以一美元計(jì)，船給人們帶來(lái)的快樂(lè)最少，很多汽車和奢華的婚禮也位列其中。

    但是，我們也驚訝的發(fā)現(xiàn)最貴消費(fèi)清單中所列的東西很多都出現(xiàn)在最讓人快樂(lè)的消費(fèi)清單中。人們?cè)趦蓮埱鍐沃卸紝?xiě)上了房子、大學(xué)教育、假期旅行、昂貴的電子產(chǎn)品（大屏電視機(jī)、藍(lán)光播放器、音頻設(shè)備和電腦）以及一些名車（寶馬325、奧迪A4、積架、斯巴魯WRX、豐田prius、本田civic）

    確實(shí)，米勒博士發(fā)現(xiàn)的第一個(gè)趨勢(shì)就是：花大錢(qián)買(mǎi)的東西也會(huì)讓人覺(jué)得快樂(lè)。有些人能解釋為消費(fèi)后合理化現(xiàn)象（人們?cè)诨�了大量金錢(qián)、時(shí)間后努力說(shuō)服自己它必須是值得的）.但更多的人花了錢(qián)后一點(diǎn)兒也不后悔。正如讀者珍妮特哈布斯這樣寫(xiě)到：

    "在過(guò)去十年里，我在科德角的小屋、凌志車和勞力士是我買(mǎi)過(guò)的最貴的三件東西。盡管不是生活必需品還價(jià)格不菲，可是我愛(ài)死它們了。我才不管別人怎么說(shuō)我呢！"