Palatability vs. money: experimental study of a conflict of motivations

The pleasure of eating palatable food was pitted against the displeasure of giving money away in a situation where subjects had to spend money to buy their food. Ten healthy subjects taken individually had lunch in the laboratory on four different days. During the first session, they rated the palatability of small sandwiches, of ten different varieties. In the three following sessions, they were asked to eat the same number of sandwiches as in the first session and they had to buy each sandwich at a price that increased with palatability. The rate of the price increase was varied in the three sessions. As this rate increased, the subjects moved their preference to the less palatable sandwiches. The subjects' actual behavior was predictable from the quantitative relationship of pleasure ratings and price. This result supports the hypothesis according to which behavior tends to maximize multidimensional pleasure experience.