Branding a Design : Designing a Brand - the case of Branding versus Design

I remember asking my significant other this hypothetical question. If she were to undergo a blind test of choosing between two similarly and outstandingly designed bags, one by a brand that she is comfortable with, and the other, of a brand that she would not be caught carrying, which one would she select? And this is given the hypothetical scenario that both the logos or brands of the bags have been removed. Though the answer is inconclusive, but I do wonder whether a person's preference for a certain way that a particular item is designed, and his eventual and perpetual liking for a certain particular design, or sets of design, has anything got to do with nature!

I ask this because as I was watching a documentary from the Discovery Channel on how the physical, mental and social growth of an infant develops over the years from birth, what surprises me from the episode is about how at an early age of between 4 to 8 years of age, a child has already a nurturing inkling of what kind of person would he or she be liking, or have an affinity towards when he or she grows up. Though not necessarily be ending up as a life partner, what surprises me is perhaps this nurturing liking for a certain physical way that a potential partner will look like, or of how he or she would have a certain trait or character, that perhaps would be the differentiating factor of making someone a potential mate...or not.

Now that just makes me wonder whether deep down in our most innermost of recesses, and perhaps in the deepest and non-conscious parts of our cerebral cortex, we might just have this trigger of sorts that would draw us to a certain brand, item, or perhaps even design. Could this also answer the dilemma, and perhaps potentially a research area of sorts that I have been looking for an answer to, that perhaps in each of us, there is this certain nurturing element that does compel us to like or dislike a certain design? Like the saying that 'beauty is in the eyes of the beholder'...perhaps the concept of beauty is indeed within our own subconscious mind that has been programmed for us to behold...or NOT.