How context shapes perception

Why Expensive Wine Tastes Better (Even When It Doesn't)

A few months ago, my husband and I were invited by two great friends to join them for dinner at a fancy restaurant. The food was exceptional. The atmosphere, top notch. I had a wonderful time. 

But the highlight? The sommelier. 

This man had the most poetic descriptions of wine I've ever heard. Every bottle came with a story, the soil, the climate, the winemaker's philosophy, the way the afternoon light hit the vineyard. At one point, I kid you not, he described a red as having "the whisper of a forgotten autumn, with notes of leather-bound books and the last breath of a dying fire." 

I couldn't stop laughing. Internally, respectfully, but laughing nonetheless. The tipsiness probably didn't help. 

And yet. Here's the thing. The wine genuinely tasted incredible. Was it actually better than what I drink at home? Or did the sommelier's poetry change how I experienced it? 

Neuroscientist Hilke Plassmann answered this question in a now-famous experiment. Participants tasted wines while in an fMRI scanner. They were told different prices for the same wines. When people believed they were drinking expensive wine, their brains showed more activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex, the region associated with pleasure. 

They weren't just saying it tasted better. They were experiencing more pleasure. The price, and the story, changed the actual taste. 

That sommelier wasn't just being pretentious. He was, whether he knew it or not, practising Behavioural Design. The context he created, the poetry, the reverence, the theatre, became part of the wine itself. 

This is Behavioural Design in its purest form: context shapes perception. Not just what we think, but what we genuinely experience. The frame becomes part of the reality. 

How to use this insight: 

This isn't about tricking people. It's about understanding that experience is never purely objective, and designing accordingly. 

If you're presenting work or ideas: How you introduce something shapes how it's received. A proposal presented as "a quick thought" will be evaluated differently than one presented as "something I've been developing for months." Neither is dishonest, but one invites dismissal, the other invites consideration. Before you share work, ask: what frame am I setting? 

If you're pricing products or services: Price isn't just exchange value. It's a signal that shapes the experience of what's purchased. This doesn't mean overcharging, it means understanding that underpricing can actually reduce perceived value and satisfaction. A €50 workshop might feel less valuable than a €200 one, even with identical content, because participants bring different expectations and attention. 

If you're building a team culture: How you describe what you're working on affects how people experience working on it. "We're doing routine maintenance" versus "We're protecting the foundation that everything else depends on", same work, different meaning. Leaders often underestimate how much their framing shapes their team's actual experience of the job. 

If you're trying to enjoy something more: This works on yourself too. Before tasting, watching, or experiencing something, prime yourself with positive context. Read about why a film is considered a masterpiece before watching it. Learn about the craft behind a meal before eating it. You're not fooling yourself, you're giving your brain the context it needs to notice what's actually there. 

The ethical line: There's a difference between framing and deception. Framing is providing context that shapes interpretation. Deception is making false claims. That sommelier wasn't lying about the wine, he was helping us experience it more fully. 

The wine didn't change. The experience did. And experience is what we're actually living. 

Why We Trust Heavy Things More 

Product designers have known this for decades: weight implies quality. 

Researcher Charles Spence found that people rate identical products as higher quality when they're heavier. Heavier remotes feel more reliable. Heavier cutlery makes food taste better. Heavier reports seem more thoroughly researched. 

This is called "sensation transference", we unconsciously transfer physical sensations into judgments about unrelated qualities. 

The insight extends beyond products. A printed proposal feels more substantial than an emailed one. A hardcover book feels more authoritative than a PDF. Physical presence carries weight, literally. 

If you want something to be taken seriously, consider its physical form. 

Until next week,

Astrid Groenewegen

Co-Founder of SUE | Behavioural Design Academy, Author of 'The Art of Designing Behaviour' / 'De Kunst van Gedrag Ontwerpen' and ‘De Gelukscode’.