The economic and psychological term known as “sunk-cost fallacy” is a bias that leads someone to make a decision based solely on a previous financial investment. For example, a baseball fan might attend every game of the season only because he already purchased the tickets. But not everyone would force More
Most people want to be happier. Psychological theories on happiness generally contend that happiness depends on the extent to which people have what they want. For example, most people want money, and those who make more money tend to be slightly happier. However, some theologians, particularly Rabbi Hyman Schachtel, argue More
Anxiety gets a lot of bad press. Dwelling on the negative can lead to chronic stress and anxiety disorders and phobias, but evolutionarily speaking, anxiety holds some functional value. In humans, learning to avoid harm is necessary not only for surviving in the face of basic threats (such as predators More
How you are feeling has an impact on your routine economic transactions, whether you’re aware of this effect or not. In a new study that links contemporary science with the classic philosophy of William James, a research team finds that people feeling sad and self-focused spend more money to acquire More
Are we really fooled when storekeepers price something at $19.95 instead of a round twenty bucks? It seems so and new research from University of Florida marketing professors Chris Janiszewski and Dan Uy shows that something fundamental might be going on in the brain when we think about the value More
