Chocolate chip cookie stink makes us buy sweaters

Researchers at the National University of Singapore have published a study that shows that photos and smells of delicious food cause us to make bad risk analysis and make impulse purchases:

In the first experiment, Li asked participants to act as "photo editors of a magazine" and choose among either appetite stimulating pictures of food or non-appetite stimulating pictures of nature. A control group was shown no pictures at all. All were then asked to participate in a lottery that would either pay them less money sooner or more money later.
Those who had been exposed to the photos of food were almost twenty percentage points more likely to choose the lottery with the chance of a smaller, more immediate payoff than those who were exposed to the photos of nature (61 percent vs. 41.5 percent) and eleven percentage points more likely to choose the short-term gain than those who had not been exposed to any stimulus (61 percent vs. 50 percent).
Similarly, another experiment used a cookie-scented candle to further gauge whether appetitive stimulus affects consumer behavior. Female study participants in a room with a hidden chocolate-chip cookie scented candle were much more likely to make an unplanned purchase of a new sweater -- even when told they were on a tight budget -- than those randomly assigned to a room with a hidden unscented candle (67 percent vs. 17 percent).

Link

(Image: Bake at 325..., a Creative Commons Attribution licensed photo from Clearly Ambiguous's Flickr stream)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Amanderson

I’m still wondering why they would hide an unscented candle.
iguanoid

Apparently mothballs and old-people-smell make me buy clothes ‘cuz that’s what Savers and Goodwill smell like.
buck09

Midwest Airlines is famous for baking chocolate chip cookies on every afternoon and evening flight.
Steve Stair

Amanderson> I’m still wondering why they would hide an unscented candle.

As a experimental control. They have to be sure that it isn’t just the presence of a candle in the room that causes the behavior.
TheWillow

I’m sorry, what was this post about? All I can read are the delicious gooey, not to crispy cookie bits…………….
Keneke

This is also why bookstores have adjoining coffeeshops.
pork musket

That picture… must… bake… cookies…
vik

Real estate agents, too, have known about this for a long time. If you’re trying to sell your house, you should always bake cookies just before potential buyers come around for the inspection.
elver

So is this why we humans have business lunches?
flipa

I foresee a future full of cookie-scented candles hidden in parliament corridors by cunning lobbyists.
james foreman

IKEA has known this for years. The waft of those delicious cinnamon rolls fills the entire structure, reducing my ability to resist their fiberboard furniture.
james foreman

IKEA has known this for years. The waft of those delicious cinnamon rolls fills the entire structure, reducing my ability to resist their fiberboard furniture.