'Shoppers can be made to feel sorry for single bananas, study finds'

Up top, the headline of a Guardian story about a recent study demonstrating that if single bananas or tomatoes are anthropomorphized as being sad, these "sad singles" are more likely to be purchased than if labeled "Happy."

The experiment was carried out in a major German supermarket chain, observing the purchasing behavior of 3,810 customers over a course of 192 hours.

From the Guardian article:

Charles Spence, an experimental psychologist at the University of Oxford whose work has included looking at the link between human senses and design and marketing, says that people can feel emotions towards the food they buy.

"A growing number of the population are living alone, eating alone. If they see a single banana and are told it's lonely too, it creates empathy, and that makes people want to buy it."

Of course, there are those happy to bid furiously at auction for the right to pay $6.24 million for a single banana (below).

The guy who bought the duct-taped banana, Chinese cryptocurrency businessman Justin Sun, ate it yesterday (below).

But I digress.

More?

Read the scientific paper titled "Anthropomorphic Sad Expressions Reduce Waste of 'Single' Imperfect Food, published October 27, 2024 in Psychology & Marketing.

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