How do restaurants use psychology to manipulate our spending and eating habits?

Restaurants use various tricks to manipulate us into choosing their establishment rather than another, such as the careful use of photography. The colors, even the tone, used has an effect on us. Red, for instance, can make us hungrier. Obviously, the photograph should display food beautifully arranged to titillate our appetite. Inside the restaurant, the menu has a further effect.

Note how often someone will say, Mm nice menu, meaning they were attracted by the verbal description. Plain names, beans on toast, egg and chips, fish pie, is honest but is more suited to the busy truck driver. A smidgeon of rare saffron floated over a choice cut of best salmon is much more likely to manipulate us into believing the dish will be good. One very expensive item may divert us from recognizing that their cheapest item is over-priced for what it is.

Restaurants use psychology to manipulate our spending and eating habits in many ways. To manipulate our spending, restaurants typically do not use dollar signs on their menus. They are hoping you won’t think about how much money you’re spending if the dollar signs are not present.

They also know you probably won’t buy the most expensive item on their menu so they try to draw your attention to expensive items with bold text or by placing the item in boxes. This technique makes you think other items are more reasonably priced. Probably the most common way restaurants try to manipulate a person’s eating habits is by using imaginative and descriptive language that invokes feelings of nostalgia or home-cooked family meals