{"id":2311,"date":"2026-02-19T02:48:48","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T02:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/technicalley.com\/central\/?p=2311"},"modified":"2026-03-18T06:39:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T06:39:43","slug":"%f0%9f%a7%90-quiz-why-did-they-spend-so-much-on-soup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/technicalley.com\/central\/blog\/2026\/02\/19\/%f0%9f%a7%90-quiz-why-did-they-spend-so-much-on-soup\/","title":{"rendered":"&#x1f9d0; Quiz: Why did they spend so much on soup?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Imagine you are walking through your local supermarket. You see a massive display of Campbell\u2019s Tomato Soup. It\u2019s on sale for <strong>$0.79 a can<\/strong>\u2014a great deal!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next to the display, there is a prominent sign. In one version of this experiment, the sign says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>&#8220;Limit 12 per customer.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>In another version of the same experiment, the sign simply says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>&#8220;No limit per customer.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Result:<\/strong> When the &#8220;Limit 12&#8221; sign was up, shoppers bought an average of <strong>7 cans<\/strong> each. When the &#8220;No limit&#8221; sign was up, shoppers bought an average of only <strong>3 cans<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Perplexing Situation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Why would telling people they <em>can&#8217;t<\/em> buy more than 12 actually cause them to buy <strong>more than double<\/strong> what they normally would? The price was exactly the same in both scenarios, and tomato soup isn&#8217;t exactly a rare luxury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What do you think happened here?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Was it the &#8220;Fear of Missing Out&#8221; (FOMO)?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Did shoppers suddenly realize they were &#8220;low&#8221; on soup?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Or was their brain being &#8220;weighed down&#8221; by a specific number?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Find the intriguing answer <a href=\"https:\/\/technicalley.com\/central\/blog\/2025\/08\/23\/the-price-is-right-how-the-anchoring-effect-influences-your-spending\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">here<\/a>.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Share this with a friend who always buys too much on sale!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine you are walking through your local supermarket. You see a massive display of Campbell\u2019s Tomato Soup. It\u2019s on sale for $0.79 a can\u2014a great&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,35],"tags":[98,123,159,273,276],"class_list":["post-2311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cognitive-biases","category-psychology","tag-behavioral-economics","tag-cognitive-bias","tag-featured","tag-psychology","tag-quiz","wpcat-50-id","wpcat-35-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/technicalley.com\/central\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/technicalley.com\/central\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/technicalley.com\/central\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technicalley.com\/central\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technicalley.com\/central\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/technicalley.com\/central\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2539,"href":"https:\/\/technicalley.com\/central\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311\/revisions\/2539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/technicalley.com\/central\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technicalley.com\/central\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technicalley.com\/central\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}