The Price Is Right, but Confusing

The Price Is Right, but Confusing
价格是对的，但是令人迷惑
You’re in the supermarket picking a breakfast cereal. Will it be cinnamon raisin or oats ‘n honey? Hard to decide? What if I told you they both cost the same, would that make it easier? Well, a new study suggests it would not. Because researchers have found that uniform pricing actually accentuates the differences between products, which makes it harder to choose. The results appear in the journal Psychological Science. [Jongmin Kim, Nathan Novemsky and Ravi Dhar, Adding Small Differences Can Increase Similarity and Choice]
你在超市拿起一块早餐麦片。买葡萄干还是蜂蜜的呢？很难决定？如果我告诉你价格相同，选择会简单一点吗？一项研究表明，不会。因为研究人员发现，统一定价实际上弱化了产品差异，让人很难选择。结果发表在 journal Psychological Science. [Jongmin Kim, Nathan Novemsky and Ravi Dhar, Adding Small Differences Can Increase Similarity and Choice]
Consumer psychology is big business. To explore how pricing can sway customer choice, researchers took volunteers on an imaginary shopping spree. Subjects were presented with photos, descriptions and price tags for pairs of similar items, say two different teas or a couple packs of gum.
消费者心理是一个非常大的行业。为了探索价格如何影响消费者的选择，研究人员让志愿者参与一个假想的购物节。实验对象浏览类似物品的照片，描述以及价格标签，比如不同的茶和不同的口香糖。
When the prices were a bit different, the products were seen as being similar. That perceived similarity then made it easier for subjects to choose between them, perhaps because one seemed as good as the other.
当价格有少许差异时，产品会被认为较为类似。这种类似性会让实验对象更容易做出选择，也许是因为每一个物品都看起来跟其他的一样好。
But when the price tags were identical, subjects actually rated the items as being less similar, perhaps because they were forced to focus on what made the products different, such as flavor. Now, back to the breakfast cereal: will it be whole milk or 2 percent?
但是当价格标签完全一样时，实验对象实际上认为，物品并不相似，也许因为他们他们被强迫关注产品差异的地方，比如口味。回到开头提到的早餐麦片的例子：买全奶的还是2% 牛奶的呢？