How Beliefs and Values Influence What Tastes Good

This was a very intriguing article to read about food. This article was all about how one’s belief could influence the choice of foods they like. In one experiment, participants were given sausage rolls, some with real beef and some with a vegetarian alternative. However, if some participants were told they were eating real beef, they were actually eating the vegetarian alternative and those told they were eating the vegetarian alternative were actually eating real beef. The results showed that a majority of them couldn’t tell much of a difference. But along with this experiment they did find that those high in social power preferred the real beef, while those low in social power preferred the vegetarian alternative. Much like the sausage rolls experiment, there was a Pepsi challenge which showed that a majority of people actually preferred the store brand cola over Pepsi.

Overall, I thought this article was interesting. It’s funny how we always want the best brands of food like Pepsi, but when we don’t know that we aren’t drinking actual Pepsi we like it better. In the end I think its all in our head whether or not we like a certain food or not.