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."

    花多少钱能买到快乐呢？

    也许人们并不是那么容易被广告骗到？

    过去几十年来，社会心理学家和行为经济学家们一直为能操控消费者作出种种蠢事而自鸣得意。他们为能证明制度经济学中理性经济人寻求经济效用最大化是错误的而沾沾自喜。

    如果物价上升了，那么传统的以价格为重的消费者会减小自己对该商品的需求。但是，受"一等价钱一等货"的影响，有时我们反而会买的更多。我们不仅脑袋被骗了，连身体反应都会因此改变。

    比如，如果你给一个人一剂安慰剂，但却跟他说这是一片值2.5美元的止疼片，那他吃了以后肯定觉得身体也不是那么疼了。但如果你告诉他，这只值10美分，他又会觉得剧痛难耐了。又比如，人们按全价买的运动饮料会让他们表现神勇，但如果是打折买的，他们的表现就会大打折扣。再比如，人们饮酒时，如果你告诉他们这酒价值90美元，那他们肯定会对这就赞誉有加，可如果你告诉他们这只值10美元呢？

    除了在实验室里扫描饮酒人的脑部反应外，设想一下，如果我们在一个更真实的场景里测试他们，比如在餐馆里自掏腰包就餐时情况又会是怎样的呢？来自康奈尔的Ori Heffetz和耶路撒冷希伯莱大学的Moses Shayo两位行为经济学家在特拉维夫高级餐厅进行了一项实验，他们希望能通过改变菜单价格来操控食客们的选择。

    在对食客和侍者的情况都不了解的条件下，两位经济学家观察记录了人们点套餐时的选择。套餐有三道菜，其中主食有五种可供选择：虾球、猪腿肉、红鲻鱼排、香肠以及洋蓟菜泥。为了让价格有个对比，研究者在五种菜旁的括号里标出了他们单点时的单价。而这些单价是不会影响套餐的价格的，因为不管点什么，套餐都是30美元。根据研究者的推测，如果鲻鱼排标价20美元，而其他菜标价17美元，那么人们更愿意选择相对较贵的鱼排。

    但是三个月过去了，研究者们发现：不管怎么改变价格组合，他们都无法左右食客们的选择。人们不会因为虾球或其他某一道菜的价格高就点它。

    两位经济学家又进行一次食物测试，可是，这次的结果还是和他们的预期南辕北辙。在这次实验中，他们让人们在饴糖和花生黄油棒棒糖两种价格不一的糖中做出选择。

    从表面上看，价格操控奏效了：实验参与者称，他们会买价格更高的糖。但是，这只是"纸上谈兵"罢了。当研究者们要他们买一袋糖时，人们却不顾价格而是按着自己的口味买了。

    人们为什么不受高价糖果和主菜的诱惑？为什么跟着自己的口味走呢？

    Shayo博士解释道："有时候，也许传统经济学说的在理。人们对食物都有固定的偏好。就像有人喜欢虾子；有人不喜欢，即使它很贵。"

    在实验室条件下消费者是会受价格变化影响的。对此，研究人员非常肯定。但他们提出这样一个疑问，即在象特拉维夫餐馆一样的现实世界里，物价是不可能乱涨的，那么价格对人的影响有多大呢？heffetz博士说："关键是大小。我们的实验告诉我们光知道'甲对乙有正影响'是不够的，因为这种影响可能微不足道。"

    笔者和杰弗里米勒进行了一个放宽条件的研究，其中也涉及了影响大小的问题。这个研究登在了在我的tierney实验室博客中。杰弗里米勒是新墨西哥大学的一名进化心理学家，在他的新书《消费：性别、进化和消费者行为》中，他讲到人们之所以花大价钱买东西是因为他们无意识地或错误地认为我们买的东西越贵，越能让我们周围的人感到我们的智力或者品格很高。

    米勒博士做了个小测试。他要我们博客的读者列出自己曾买过的最贵的10样东西还有最让自己买后觉得快乐的10样东西。有200多人参与了测试。正如我们所料，很多人觉得很后悔，他们花了很多钱却没得到快乐。以一美元计，船给人们带来的快乐最少，很多汽车和奢华的婚礼也位列其中。

    但是，我们也惊讶的发现最贵消费清单中所列的东西很多都出现在最让人快乐的消费清单中。人们在两张清单中都写上了房子、大学教育、假期旅行、昂贵的电子产品（大屏电视机、蓝光播放器、音频设备和电脑）以及一些名车（宝马325、奥迪A4、积架、斯巴鲁WRX、丰田prius、本田civic）

    确实，米勒博士发现的第一个趋势就是：花大钱买的东西也会让人觉得快乐。有些人能解释为消费后合理化现象（人们在花了大量金钱、时间后努力说服自己它必须是值得的）.但更多的人花了钱后一点儿也不后悔。正如读者珍妮特哈布斯这样写到：

    "在过去十年里，我在科德角的小屋、凌志车和劳力士是我买过的最贵的三件东西。尽管不是生活必需品还价格不菲，可是我爱死它们了。我才不管别人怎么说我呢！"