A higher price tag may actually make your customers happier. That's according to a recent study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, mentioned in this MSNBC.com article. The study asserts that the more a consumer believes a product is worth, the happier he or she is with the purchase. "It's very weird, I know," said Antonio Rangel, the lead author of the study and an associate economics professor at California Institute of Technology. "But people believe that more expensive prices are correlated with higher quality. So if you believe something better is happening to you, that affects the way your brain handles the experience."

Before coming to these results, the study's participants were hooked up to brain scan machines while they sipped on five glasses of wine ranging from $5 to $90 a bottle. The result? When participants were told they were drinking a glass of wine from a $90 bottle, the area of the brain that registers pleasure had an increase in activity. The findings worry some psychologists. "So many people want more than they have because they want to be more than they are--so buying more equals being more," said psychologist April Benson.