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| Which number is bigger? |
Researchers have determined that, from the viewpoint of a consumer, "1900" is smaller than "1,900." The difference is that most people read the first term as "nineteen hundred" (four syllables) and the second one as "one thousand nine hundred" (six syllables). One a scale of one to ten with respect to the magnitude of the price, with ten being something really expensive and one being really cheap, experimental subjects rated the $1,900 price with the more syllables as having a higher magnitude than the price of $1900.
The researchers then tried to see if adding a few cents to the figure made a difference. It did. The test subjects rated "$1346.29" as being substantially higher than "$1346"--in fact, they rated the first price as 8% higher than the second, even though the actual percentage increase was only 0.02%.
Remember this experiment the next time you are in a snobby restaurant which offers you a side of broccoli for a price of "9.5" or you see an ad for a video game for "49" dollars.
For further information on the study, please click on the Psychology Today website.
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