For a long time, corporations have been working to understand how to affect consumer behavior and influence more people to purchase their products. Market research has made some headway in this arena recently, explaining how the impulses that drive consumers to purchase are produced. Now, you may not realize it, but it turns out that what makes you feel good is a part of the brain dubbed “the pleasure center.” It’s this center that makes us feel happy when kissed, that drives us to eat our favorite foods or play our favorite games, that makes us want to relax on the beach.

Laboratory tests have shown that rats who can control their pleasure centers with a switch will literally jump at the opportunity to do so. Scientists set up electrical pulses that control the pleasure centers of rats’ brains and found that the rats would sacrifice anything to continuously pounce towards the levers and experience electrical bursts of happiness. Disturbingly, rather than eat or sleep, these rats flipped their switches without end, stopping only when they died of sheer exhaustion…   

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