CHICAGO, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- People tend to approach pleasure and avoid pain, but humans can trick the mind into doing beneficial things they don't like, U.S. researchers suggest.
Aparna A. Labroo of the University of Chicago and Jesper Nielsen of the University of Arizona in Tucson say human inclination is to avoid -- or try to avoid -- anything immediately aversive even though it may be beneficial for us in the long term.
"We tend to infer that something is good based on the bodily sensation of approaching it or bad based on the sensation of avoiding it," the researchers say in a statement.
However, the authors demonstrate an approach often used to try to cure phobic patients -- asking them to mentally simulate approaching the objects they fear -- can also create more favorable evaluations of "yucky" products and behaviors.
The researchers offered study respondents a can of curried grasshopper -- not terribly popular among the participants -- and asked one group to simply evaluate it, a second group to mentally simulate physical avoidance of the product and a third to simulate physical approach toward the can.
"What was surprising was that merely simulating physical approach resulted in a more favorable evaluation of the product," the authors say in a statement. "One way for us to overcome aversions is to trick our minds."
The findings are published in the Journal of Consumer Research.
