The Daily Stat from Harvard Business Review

 

December 4, 2014 Our Love of Shiny, Glossy Things Goes Back to Our Need for Water Overall, research participants who saw photos of planets preferred pictures that had been printed on glossy paper, but the preference for shininess was much more pronounced among participants who had first eaten 8 thirst-inducing salty crackers, says a team led by Katrien Meert of Ghent University in Belgium. This and other experiments suggest that people’s widespread affinity for reflective surfaces – even small children preferred glossy to non-glossy pictures of Santa Claus (2.26 versus 2.74 on a 1-to-4 scale with 1 being “most preferred”) – stems from a biological attraction to sources of water, the researchers say. SOURCE: Taking a shine to it: How the preference for glossy stems from an innate need for water

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