What you're paying for

This anecdote and the article it came from...

In a recent experiment, psychologists told 32 volunteers that they were going to try a new brand of strawberry yogurt. They then turned out the light, telling the testers that it was too ensure they focused on "taste." 19 of the 32 praised the "strawberry flavor," and one said she loved strawberry yogurt and would switch to this brand. The yogurt was chocolate.

Led to this really interesting post from Ezra Klein about how we're often really paying for a "mental state":

On the other hand, when people go out for a good meal (or a play, a concert, etc), they're paying for more than the food: They're buying themselves into a mindset, a particular mood to share with friends, an attentiveness to the cuisine. Broadly speaking, those are all mental states. You shouldn't need to pay for them. But we often do. The money goes, in part, to focus the mind. Having already bet on the value of the experience, we're locked in to engaging it fully.