Perhaps I need to justify the claim
that people decide things based on impressions.
An example may help.
A good many people (including myself,
up until a few years ago) associate “vitamin C” with “sour” or “acidic.” This is probably due to the fact (and it is a
fact) that citrus fruits, which contain some of the highest levels of vitamin C
per cup/gram, are also acidic to one degree or another. One cup of orange sections has supposedly about
90 mg of vitamin C in it.
So when the doctor tells us we need
more vitamin C, we either pop a pill or—if we want to go the natural way—we pick
up the sour fruits in the produce aisle.
Grapefruit? Definitely.
Watermelon? Nope.
Bananas? Nah-ah. Mangos?
Not a chance.
But a cup of mango has about 60 mg
of vitamin C. That’s not as high as an orange,
but it’s still remarkable for a fruit that doesn’t taste—to me, at least—remotely
sour. Other non-sour vitamin C foods
that are in the same ballpark as oranges and mangoes include peppers, brassicas
(broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower), and papayas.
It turns out that the “sour” taste
comes mostly from “citric acid” (guess what! citrus fruits contain a lot of
that), while vitamin C is actually ascorbic acid. Vinegar—another “sour” tasting item—gets its
slightly different version of “sour” from acetic acid.
I got all of that information from
googling, by the way. I’m pretty sure it’s
all true because I got lots and lots of results that agreed, and because this
maps on to my vague memories of high school science. But there’s a small chance that I could be
wrong in the details here, and a very, very small chance that the broad outline
I have presented here is false—so if you feel like fact checking the example,
go for it.
The point, however, is simply that
it’s easy to have a false but plausible belief—and one that affects your
everyday actions.
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