Why We Save The Best Chocolate Piece For Last
Ed O’Brien, a researcher in social psychology at the University of Michigan, came up with the paper. He claims that our choices depend on the moment and also personal taste. Also, an essential circumstance here is knowing the end of an experience.
Based on O’Brien’s concept, endings and last chances have a different allure. He said: “I think in everyday life we do have this expectation that we save the best for last.”
“When people are given awareness that something is about to end, they’re kind of motivated to make the most of that experience,” he added.
Does it even have something to do with little stuff like savoring the last piece of chocolate? To verify the idea, O’Brien together with other researchers called for 52 students on the University of Michigan campus and requested them to be involved in a taste test.
Such students tried out different kinds of Hershey’s Kisses from caramel to almond to dark chocolate. Following the taste test, these students were required to rate their most favorite.
“So we had a big bag of candy that was covered from the outside and you couldn’t see what was in it or how many [chocolates were there],” he said.
Some of the students did not have any clue that the fifth chocolate was going to be their last one. In such case, the participants claimed that the last piece of chocolate they were able to taste was their favorite about 22% of the time.
On the other hand, another group of student was clued in that the fifth piece was going to be their “last.” And O’Brien suggests that such awareness about how the entire experience was ending somehow forced them to savor the chocolate even better.
He said: “The majority of people [64 percent] chose it as their favorite even though we’d randomly distributed the flavors,” .
Many studies have shown that the last things are actually more powerful. Why, you may ask. They usually are the freshest in our thoughts, that’s why. And O’Brien believes that the last-is-best thinking might be applied to romance and relationships.
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