You can lookâ€"but don't touch

Those in the open auctions, on the other hand, were allowed to see other bids. Participants in open auctions placed their bids for a mug worth $4.95 through a computer-based auction similar to eBay, where they could see the current high bid and time remaining in the auction. The open auctions had “soft� ending times, meaning the length of the auction was extended every time a bid was placed in the last 15 seconds of the auction. Soft ending times were used to reduce the effects of last-second bidding.
All participants were told the retail value of the coffee mug before the auction began. They were also informed that several identical mugs were available for purchase at the campus bookstore adjacent to the testing location. All participants received $10 for participating in the experiment; they were told that the winning bidders would have their bid amount taken out of their payment if they agreed.
The results showed that people who held the item for 30 seconds bid significantly higher than people who touched the mug for 10 seconds. The average bid in the open auctions was $2.44 for people who touched the mug for 10 seconds and $3.91 for those in the 30 second experiments. This finding was also consistent for those in silent auctions, with people in the 10 and 30 second experiments bidding $2.24 and $3.07, respectively. - SD