Ariely's Experiments

In our reading, Dan Ariely illustrates how our expectations influence our opinions and experiences. He, along with some of his colleagues, conducted several experiments to determine whether or not the expectations people had an effect on their views of successive events and what he found was that expectations greatly affect our opinions and experiences. Ariely explores how the appearance of things affects the overall satisfaction with his coffee example. When he put out nice containers for the additional items available to be added to the coffee, people were willing to pay more for the coffee because their expectations for the coffee reflected the apparent quality of the containers the additional items were in. Another important point this article makes is when knowledge is gained before an experience, this knowledge greatly influences experiences and opinions. However, if the knowledge was gained after the experience already occurred, it didn’t have as much of an impact on the overall experience. This entire article describes the vital role that marketing plays in the market place. People create value for things based on their expectations of a product. Image, brand, and how you sell a product will greatly affect the customers’ experiences and opinions of your product.

The main example Dan Ariely uses is about testing preferences between an MIT brew of beer, which was the major national brand beer with a few drops of balsamic vinaigrette, and a major national brand beer. He varied between giving participants no information about either of the beers, giving them information about the beers before they drank them, and giving participants information about the beers after they tried them. As predicted, all of these different expectations affected the participants’ opinions and experiences. When no information was given, participants chose the MIT brew. When information was given ahead of time, participants chose the national brand. When information was given after participants tried the brews, the MIT brew was chosen more often than before. This illustrates a good point: if you given people the idea upfront that something might not be good, then chances are they will think it isn’t good, not because of the experience, but because of their expectations.

Another really good example of this occurred when I learned what products my best friend’s family uses to cook their delicious holiday dinners. Her parents used to own a restaurant and they are terrific cooks. When trying their dishes for the holidays, I knew they had to be really good because her parents were chefs and of course everything ended up tasting really good. What I learned later was that they used no name brand products in their cooking and used generic brands for butter, milk, whipping cream, etc. Since learning that they use these generic brands, I wasn’t less satisfied with the overall dishes. However, I know that if I had known her parents use generic products in their cooking before I had tried the dish, I know that I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed their dinners as much as I do now. This example shows how my own opinions are shaped by what I’m expecting out of food from the knowledge I already know. More simply, even as a marketer, I let name brands, images, and expectations affect my experiences.