In the first episode of my Nudge podcast, I interviewed the fantastic psychologist Dr. Adrian North, who conducted one of the seminal studies on the psychology of music. Back in 1997, the researchers stocked an English supermarket with four types of French and German wines, all similarly matched in cost, dryness, and sweetness. For two weeks, the store speakers either played German oom-pah music or French accordion music. North and his colleagues would switch the music daily and measure the effect on sales. Turns out, 83% of wine buyers bought French wine when the accordion music was playing, while 65% […]