Think you’re already a savvy shopper and smart saver? Well here’s a way to spend even less: don’t touch. A new study shows that if you touch stuff when you’re shopping, it increases your sense of ownership and makes you more willing to pay more for it. Here’s how the study came to that conclusion:

To prove the power of touch, the researchers placed two products, a Slinky and a coffee mug, in front of 231 undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin. About half were told they could touch the products, while the other half were prohibited from fiddling with them. Students were then asked to express their sense of ownership of the products, and to indicate how much they money they were willing to pay for both the Slinky and coffee mug.

The results were clear: those who touched the items reported statistically significant higher levels of perceived ownership. They were also willing to pay more to purchase the products.

If you don’t want to spend more money, be careful what you touch,” says Joann Peck, a marketing professor at the University of Wisconsin’s business school and the study’s other co-author.

I get it, “Look, but no haptics.”

Want to Save Some Money? Shop Without Touching [TIME] (Photo: The Joy Of The Mundane)

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