The producers of instant coffee found their product strongly resisted in the market places despite their distinct advantages. Furthermore, the advertising expenditure for instant coffee was far greater than that for regular coffee. Efforts were made to find the cause of the consumers’ seemingly unreasonable resistance to the product. The reason given by most people was dislike for the taste. The producers suspected that there might be deeper reasons, however. This was confirmed by one of motivation research’s classic studies, one often cited in the trade. Mason Harire of the University of California constructed two shopping lists that were identical except for one item. There were six items common to both lists: hamburger, carrots, barking power, bread, canned peaches and potatoes, with the brands or amounts specified. The seventh item, in the fifth place on both lists, read “1IB. Maxwell House coffee” on one list and “Nescafe instant coffee” on the other. One list was given to each person in a group of fifty women, and the other list to those in another group of the same size. The women were asked to study their lists and then to describe, as far as they could, the kind of woman (“personality and character”) who would draw up that shopping list. Nearly half of those who had received the list including instant coffee described a housewife who was lazy and a poor planner. On the other hand, only one woman in the other group described the housewife, who had included regular coffee on her list, as lazy; only six of that group suggested that she was a poor planner. Eight women felt that the instant-coffee user was probably not a good wife! No one in the other group drew such a conclusion about the housewife who intended to buy regular coffee.