Hands Right on the Food, But Not the Furniture

As the popularity of food trucks and fusion cuisine grows, people are frequently eating without benefit of knives and forks. That’s for the good, according to studies at New Jersey’s Stevens Institute of Technology. Handling our food directly leads to greater pleasure from the consumption experience. Middle Eastern, Central American, and South Asian restaurants offer up ample finger food options. Other dining establishments should consider doing so as well, this research suggests. Move beyond the tacos and pizza to sophisticated entrees. Almost any concoction can be handheld if you include a thin flour pancake to wrap it into.
     There is a qualifier on this recommendation, though. The enhanced pleasure from touching the food was seen clearly among people intending to exercise self-control in their eating, and the enhanced pleasure was found to lead to consumption of greater quantities. A dining utensils option will benefit dieters.
     Another qualifier concerns the generalizability of the recommendation that you should promptly encourage customers to fondle the merchandise. Researchers at University of Alabama, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Norwegian Business School identify some boomerang consequences of a retail employee asking shoppers not to touch specific items. Shoppers in a home goods department store were shown a customizable closet system with an abundance of movable drawers and smooth-siding racks. Some of the shoppers were encouraged to examine the furniture as the features were described. The others were told the closet system was for display only and asked not to touch it.
     In the studies, no-touch instructions caused consumers to counterbalance the loss of freedom by handling other merchandise. This is to a retailer’s gain because decades of consumer research shows how when a shopper feels an item, they become substantially more likely to purchase it. In the store study, the group of shoppers instructed not to touch the closet system subsequently purchased items for a larger total, average $133 each, than did the other shoppers, $53. The best sequence for a salesperson might be to restrict initial touching of certain items followed by presentation of alternatives available for touching and then invitations to touch previously forbidden items.
     The process at work with “Do Not Touch” is called “reactance.” It kicks in when shoppers sense that their freedom of choice is threatened. Reactance occurs across cultures. It’s found not only in places like the U.S., where individual initiative is treasured, but in collectivist cultures like South Korea.

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Sense the Pleasure from Tactile Ordering
Fork Over Those Smaller Plates
React When Faced with Reactance