Budgeting in advance is a good practice to control spending. Research reported in this article, however, shows that budgeting too early for a specific purchase may increase spending. This is due to what the authors term 'budget depreciation', a process in which consumers adapt to the reference point set by the budget, lower their pain-of-payment from the budgeted amount, and increase their willingness-to-spend.
An increasing number of academic studies have used sports data to investigate economic behavior. Sports data are not only readily available, they also provide an excellent laboratory to study human behavior in real competitive environments. In this article, I will present several examples of my own work that have used sports data to explain fundamental economic theories, as well as articles that showed divergences of economic decision making from neo-classical theories.
There is a lot of evidence on the variation of human experience and that economic, social and linguistic environments strongly shape people’s behaviour, motivations and preferences. Despite this, these topics have not received a lot of attention in decision making psychology. In this article, I shed some light on the background of why this is the case.
Languages influence perceptions and decision-making. We highlight one of the most important linguistic features – Future Time Reference. FTR impacts speakers’ behaviors involving intertemporal considerations, even the most critical decision on life – suicide.
It’s almost impossible to rationally plan old age, given that decisions in this domain are complex, jointly made and emotional. I argue that behavioral economics can help us understand some of our common decision-making barriers, such as dealing with decision avoidance, reframing old age positively, and designing interventions to better forecast our needs in old age.
Most people are overconfident in various aspect of their daily life. Yet, this bias has been shown to have detrimental economic and financial consequences. In light of these costs, why is this bias so persistent in the population? Our research provides an explanation for this phenomenon: being overconfident can provide a strategic advantage by influencing others in social interactions.
Using cognitive mechanisms (commitment, loss aversion, social norms and suchlike), I hacked myself to boost my motivation for exercise and healthy habits, get in shape and lose 15 kilos (33 pounds)… all in a record six months.
How much information do you need to make up your mind? Our research in various domains of decision making shows that we make decisions more quickly and based on less information than we think. This has important implications in an age in which information is plentiful.
Researchers have long maintained the importance of individual differences in motivational orientations for understanding personality and behavior. Recent findings suggest that strengthening and integrating four different motives in particular may make us better decision makers and more effective at achieving our goals.
New research shows that being similar to a previous winner can have radically different effects on people’s participation likelihood in sweepstakes – it all depends on the attributions people make for the winning outcome.
