7 Ways Restaurants Screw You Over (With Science)

So next time you eat out, pay attention to where you sit; it might end up determining whether you can stand back up again.

A group of researchers at Cornell set out to determine the effects of complimentary chocolate on restaurant tipping, because they have to study something now that all known diseases have been cured forever. They found that when customers were given a small piece of chocolate with their check, they tipped more than customers who received no reward. Not only that: The more free chocolate you get, the more money you leave on the table. No wonder the Easter Bunny has been doing his job for no salary for so long -- he's making a killing in tips.

And it's not just chocolate: previous studies (seriously, did we already conquer the entire universe and no one told us?) concluded that writing a helpful message, a simple "thank you," or even just drawing a happy face on the bill increases the tip considerably too. The most likely explanation for this is the norm of reciprocity. In human language, that means that people generally feel obligated to repay acts of generosity even when they weren't expected or requested. This can pay off massively for servers: Those who handed out sweets ended up getting around a 20 percent increase in their tips for very little cost. That kind of money builds up if you're dishing out sweets for every customer each shift. If you're the kind of person who prefers to tip minimally, don't take candy from strangers.

They're far from the only store in the nasal game, though. Panera Bread moved their bakers' shifts from night to day to make the venues smell more like a bakery. Starbucks created an "Aroma Task Force" (lamest '90s cartoon show ever) to tackle an important problem: The smell of cheese was overpowering the coffee aroma. They actually stopped selling sandwiches for six months in 2008 because of that, until the ATF solved the issue and presumably flew back to the Aroma-Dome to gear up for their epic battle with Dr. Flatus.

So, does all of this work? Science says yes. According to the Monell Chemical Senses Center, a nonprofit group that researches taste and smell, our nose is closely connected with the area of our mind associated with memory and emotion, which means that smells waft up there without being processed by our thalamus (our conscious radar). By the time we think about what we're rubbing our nose up against, it's already entered our emotional brain. This part of the brain is the biggest influence on what we buy and eat, which explains why it's so profitable for businesses to blitz your boogers.

The researchers already knew from previous studies/breakups that people eat more when there's more variety, but the significance of the candy experiments is that they confirm you don't actually have to add more flavors to make this happen -- just make it look like you did. In this case, there was no actual disparity in variety, but the illusion of it was still enough to make people go, "Wow, look at all these options! Better keep eating more."

For restaurants, this means they can trick you into eating more just by organizing the food in a certain way. The meat at your local buffet might be in different trays, but they're still all made of horse hooves and pig guts, so don't let them deceive you -- one serving should be enough.

In the study in question, 94 undergraduate students were split into three groups and had to watch 20 minutes of television while eating (and muttering, "I would have done this for free"). One group watched an excerpt from action flick The Island, another luckier group watched the same film with no sound, and the final group watched interview program Charlie Rose. The participants were provided with a variety of snacks, ranging from M&M's to grapes, because that was the only chance undergrads would get to have a balanced meal that week.

When the viewing had finished, researchers weighed what food was left. They found that the groups watching The Island ate twice as much food as the interview watchers. Even those who had to watch Scarlett Johansson run from explosions in a silent universe ate more of the snacks than the group subjected to Charlie Rose, which means that the show's host (whose name escapes us right now) can either really engage an audience or can't even keep them awake. Supposedly, fast-paced shows with a lot of camera cuts distract us from what we're eating, leading us to pay less attention to how much food we're putting in our mouths, and therefore we consume more.

Further research done at Cornell University found that sad, emotional movies made viewers eat up to 55 percent more popcorn than funny flicks Sweet Home Alabama and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The salty tears shed during depressing films must make those cardboard chunks cinemas call popcorn actually taste all right. The results led the research team to believe that movies generate emotional eating, and the best way to get that response is through either action-packed or very emotional films. By this logic, brace yourself for Orphaned Puppies Exploding For Hours: Presented By Hot Pockets, coming Christmas 2017.

There's even a strange relationship between the perceived ethnicity of a food and its attractiveness to customers, which can be manipulated by restaurants. A British restaurant offered both British and Italian dishes on its menu while using different decorations: Its normal look and an Italian theme, complete with ethnic names for the dishes. When the Italian theme was in place, pasta and dessert sales went up and sales of fish went down. This makes sense: People probably just figured that Italians are better at making pasta, right? The weird part is that even dishes like fish and veal were judged as more "Italian," even though they hadn't changed at all -- they just had different decoration around them.

In other words, by carefully choosing the interior decorations to reflect what kind of food they want you to think they offer, a savvy restaurateur can trick customers into thinking their sloppy joes are ... uhhh ... East Timorese Auroch Poultices.

Of course, restaurants can and do use this to their advantage: Menus are structured so that you'll order the most profitable items available. The meals they want to sell will be placed in hot spots where your gaze is likely to linger, while the less profitable ones are literally in the last place you'd look. Ever notice that the dishes are rarely ordered by price? That's so you can't easily move down the page and land on the cheapest item. You have to work for it.

According to The New York Times, menus are designed like newspapers, which must mean nobody reads them anymore and most meals are ordered online. Some restaurants place their most profitable items at the top right of the menu, where a newspaper would place the most important stories, and use white space or boxes to draw attention to specific meals. The most effective tactic, as it is in anything that involves reading, is to use a picture to capture the audience's fleeting attention span. Putting a photograph or an icon that represents the meal will grab the customer's attention and lead them to buy more of that product. Shame on them for using such shady tactics.

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And be sure to check out 5 Disgusting Truths About Every Restaurant (From A Chef) and 4 Theme Restaurants Clearly Designed by Crazy People.

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