••• leisure research
Free breakfast tops travelers’ list of amenities
As more and more Americans hit the road to travel this summer, the No. 1 value amenity they look for when booking a hotel is free breakfast, according to a survey commissioned by Hilton.
In the OnePoll survey of 2,000 Americans from January 3- 5, 2022, 60 percent said they are currently planning for spring and summer travel. Seventy-three percent of those surveyed cited unexpected food costs as a major pain point when on the road and 40% of Americans have stayed at a hotel just to avoid cooking breakfast altogether.
Ninety-one percent of families pay an average of up to $50 on breakfast alone, with 82% reporting they prefer buffets with options to satisfy the entire family. Only 19% of those surveyed say they have time to eat breakfast daily, even though 79% feel more productive after eating it in the morning.
When asked what their choice would be if they could have one breakfast item for the rest of their lives, respondents said pancakes, followed by toast and waffles – with bacon topping the list as America’s favorite breakfast side.
••• consumer psychology
Secrets are told to punish the secret-holder
According to a new study by researchers at Arizona State University and Columbia University, when we learn another person’s secret that breaks our own moral code, we’re more willing to divulge that secret to “punish” the secret-holder, according to Jessica Salerno, an associate professor of psychology in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Arizona State University.
In “Morality, Punishment and Revealing Other People’s Secrets,” Salerno and her co-author, Michael Slepian of Columbia University, found a consistent trend in how often secrets were divulged and some of the motivations as to why they were divulged.
The role of punishment is a key in the divulging of a secret. If the person who was confided in thinks the person who holds the secret has already been punished, then they are less motivated to divulge the secret. Remove the punishment, however, and then people are more motivated to divulge the secret to fulfill that need to see them punished, Salerno says.
The research, which is based on a series of nine studies that asked participants how often they decide it is appropriate to reveal someone else’s secrets and what their motivations were behind those decisions, is published in the early online issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.