Spending based on perceptions?

[Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/business/26drill.html

People spend money based on how much they think they have, and that
perception is easily manipulated.

In one experiment, 55 shoppers at a supermarket were asked a series of
questions about their wallets. Did they have any library cards? Did
they carry pictures or cash? How many other wallets did they own?

An equal number were asked similar questions about their financial
portfolios. Both groups then went shopping.

The second group of shoppers, who had been asked to think about their
bank accounts and thus had a large reserve of money "cognitively
accessible" to them, spent 36% more than the group who had thought
about their wallets.

--

That a belief is useful does not mean it is true.

...Unknown