I can live for two months,” confessed Mark Twain, “on a good compliment. - Robert B. Cialdini

we all fool ourselves from time to time in order to keep our thoughts and beliefs consistent with what we have already done or decided

It is much more profitable for salespeople to present the expensive item first, not only because to fail to do so will lose the influence of the contrast principle; to fail to do so will also cause the principle to work actively against them. Presenting an inexpensive product first and following it with an expensive one will cause the expensive item to seem even more costly as a result — hardly a desirable consequence for most sales organizations.

When our freedom to have something is limited, the item becomes less available, and we experience an increased desire for it. However, we rarely recognize that psychological reactance has caused us to want the item more; all we know is that we want it. Still, we need to make sense of our desire for the item, so we begin to assign it positive qualities to justify the desire.