Noted Elsewhere on Money
Wine Drinkers Get What they Pay For
31 Jan 08
People who believe they are drinking an expensive wine enjoy it more than if they think the same wine costs less. Researchers used an MRI to scan the brains of 11 test subjects while they sipped the same wine poured from separate bottles that bore price tags of $45 and $5. (In fact, the actual retail price was $5.) The test tipplers reported that the faux high-priced wine tasted better while the brain MRI revealed that the wine poured from the high-priced bottle apeared to trigger pleasant sensations, the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
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Teaching and Doing
18 Jan 08 Who said those who can't, teach? When it comes to business, those that teach, can. Two Depaul University researchers studied more than 200 business professors who joined the ranks of senior management and found that their companies did significantly better than similar firms with no former academics in top jobs. (Academy of Management Perspectives )
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Does Sex Sell Cars?
Stanford University researchers showed erotic photographs to 15 heterosexual men, and then gave them $10 with which to gamble. The men took more chances with their money after seeing the erotic images than after viewing neutral photos of office supplies or unpleasant ones of snakes and spiders. Brain scans showed that an area of the brain associated with anticipation of reward was activated when the men looked at the erotic pictures, but not when other images were viewed. The researchers say this points to a link between supposedly irrelevant stimuli and financial decision-making.
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