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Food Prices Influence How We Judge Food Quality

How we judge the quality of a meal may be influenced by how much we pay for it, according to new research.

By , MedicalNewsToday.com for  SouthFloridaReporter.com, Nov. 30, 2015 – When it comes to food quality, you get what you pay for, right? Not necessarily. According to a new study, price influences how we judge the quality of foods, but it may not be a true reflection of how good the product is.

The study was conducted by researchers from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, and published in the Journal of Product & Brand Management.

The research team – including Dr. David Just of the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell – notes that psychologists have long believed that an experience’s most intense part (the peak) and the last part (the end) form our overall judgment about the quality of that experience.

For their study, Dr. Just and colleagues decided to test whether this theory changes dependent on how much we pay for an experience – in this case, dining out.

The research involved 139 individuals who dined at an all-you-can-eat Italian restaurant. The participants were allocated to one of two groups: one group was charged $4 for their meal, while the other was charged $8.

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