Mind Genomics & Perception of the Restaurant: Homo Emotionalis vs Homo Economicus

Abstract

Three experiments explored the perception of the situation in a restaurant from the point of view of an observer. The first experiment, focusing on the projected feelings of a server in a situation, revealed the ease with which respondents were able to project the emotions of the server, as well as exhibiting two easy-to-uncover mind-sets. The second and third experiments focused on the expected price of the meal, expressed relative to the normal amount they would expect to pay. In these two experiments, The results were harder to interpret and did not tell a convincing story, either for the total panel, or for mind-sets extracted. We posit that the psychological mechanism for judging feelings, easily available when judging a situation, are different from the psychological mechanisms for judging the economic aspects of the same situation, when what is being judged is behavior, rather than a specific product..