I'm not sure, but I think this effect was mentioned in 'Persuasion' by Robert Cialdini. It's worth reading if you haven't already. His example was a wine list

I'm not sure, but I think this effect was mentioned in 'Persuasion' by Robert Cialdini. It's worth reading if you haven't already. His example was a wine list - the waiter first suggests the cheapest wine, which the customer dismisses out of hand, not wanting to look a cheapskate. The waiter then suggests a very expensive wine, and the customer nervously asks if he can recommend anything else. Finally the waiter suggests another wine which is priced between the other two (but perhaps costs more than the customer would originally have wanted to pay) and it seems like a bargain compared with the expensive wine. He also mentions a jewellery store in a tourist resort which started selling more items when they put their prices up. When the jewellery was cheap, it sent the signal 'this is cheap tat' - when the price was higher, customers started thinking 'this is a quality item' even though the product was the same. Joel Spolsky has also covered this topic, again it's worth reading if you're not already familiar with it: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...