#20 - The layouts of supermarkets are not accidental: they

[LawSchoolDream]

The original staff member stated that nowhere in the stimulus do they say "distracting customers" but isn't saying that "Passing tempting displays the whole way" indicating that the distraction is present? I was split between B,C,D and chose C but cancelled E too soon because nowhere did they mention the word "manipulate".

If we are to say the stimulus indicates manipulation, then I feel the stimulus also indicates distraction. How to decipher which it really is that the stimulus indicates as the correct answer in such scenarios?

[Jeff Wren]

One definition of distract is to "divert (attention) from something," so I can see how the supermarkets' practice of placing common items such as a loaf of bread at the back of the store and putting tempting displays along the way could be seen as distracting the customers from their initial goal of buying the one product that they came in for. However, the supermarket presumably still wants the customer to buy the bread too, so it's more like adding to the customer's goal with extra products rather than completely diverting their attention from that goal.

The main problem with Answer D (which is the same problem with Answer B) is that we do not know that it is not good for business. Just because customers say they dislike the practice does not mean that the practice does not work at increasing sales. For example, many people would probably say that they dislike advertisements in general if you were to ask them, but that doesn't mean that they don't work.

One definition of manipulate is to "control or influence (a person or situation) cleverly, unfairly, or unscrupulously." This certainly describes what the supermarkets are doing in placing common items such as a loaf of bread at the back of the store and putting tempting displays along the way. Whether practice this is unfair or unscrupulous is debatable, but it is arguably clever (assuming that it works in increasing sales). And if it didn't work, the supermarkets probably wouldn't bother do it.