Here’s a riddle: what do a messy desk and an overweight waitress have in common?
Answer: Both make you spend or consume more than you intended, at least that’s what research, hot off the presses, indicates.
I am always humbled when I think about how susceptible we humans are to our environment. As a consumer researcher, I study how individuals can be manipulated by a purchase situation. And yet, there are times when I’ve walked out of a supermarket, bags full of stuff, and stopped in my tracks as I’ve realised that I’d only walked in to buy some eggs. (Of course I never want to pay the extra Rs 5 for a shopping bag!)
Whether we’re shopping, eating, socialising or even just commuting, our environment influences us more than we realise. The good news is that we can twist the world in our favour. Which brings us back to that messy desk and that plump waitress.
HOW MESS SAVES LESS
In their 2014 paper titled Environmental Disorder Leads To Self-Regulatory Failure, researchers Grace Chae and Juliet Zhu propose that people in messy environments end up spending more. One of their studies put people in rooms that were either well ordered or poorly organised and asked them how likely they were to buy a variety of products ranging from high-definition TVs to movie tickets.
The results were clear. Those in the cluttered room were more likely to buy products than the participants in the organised room. The researchers believe this is because a messy environment threatens our sense of personal control, leaving us unable to perform tasks requiring brain power – like controlling spending.
The messy space doesn’t have to be your home. Think about the piles of files and paper scattered all over your office desk. Could it be what’s triggering those post-work shopping sprees?
HOW MESS SAVES LESS
In their 2014 paper titled Environmental Disorder Leads To Self-Regulatory Failure, researchers Grace Chae and Juliet Zhu propose that people in messy environments end up spending more. One of their studies put people in rooms that were either well ordered or poorly organised and asked them how likely they were to buy a variety of products ranging from high-definition TVs to movie tickets.
The results were clear. Those in the cluttered room were more likely to buy products than the participants in the organised room. The researchers believe this is because a messy environment threatens our sense of personal control, leaving us unable to perform tasks requiring brain power – like controlling spending.
The messy space doesn’t have to be your home. Think about the piles of files and paper scattered all over your office desk. Could it be what’s triggering those post-work shopping sprees?
DANGER, CURVES AHEAD
A 2010 study, straightforwardly titled Might An Overweight Waitress Make You Eat More? shows that if you are a dieter, even the body type of the person serving you can influence your food choices and the amount you eat.
How did Brent McFerran and his co-authors figure this out? Through a pretty creative experiment. The researchers got a young girl to pose as a waitress as her normal self and separately in a “professionally constructed obesity prosthesis” (well, a fat suit) to female diners and recommend a food option to each. It turned out that dieters ate more when they were served by the heavy waitress. In another study, female participants took a taste test in which a server (again, a thin one or an obese one) offered two bite-size snacks – chocolate chip cookies or sugar-glazed rice cakes. Dieters ate approximately 7.5 snacks when served by a heavy server and 5 snacks when served by a thin one.
The researchers speculate that dieters identify with an obese server, a clear case of the individual adapting to the environment.
Vanessa Patrick is an associate professor at Bauer College of Business, University of Houston, USA | Illustrations: Siddhant jumde
From HT Brunch, June 29
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