Don’t be shocked if car sellers soon decide to seat prospective buyers in beanbag chairs, or maybe in La-Z-Boys. Soft seats subtly steer people away from driving hard bargains, a provocative new study suggests.
Objects’ tactile qualities, such as a chair’s softness or hardness, automatically call to mind associated metaphors, such as flexibility or rigidity, say MIT psychologist Joshua Ackerman and his colleagues.
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