|
ph money as poison container
|
John Farion
|
Feb 28, 2007 23:36 PST
|
Here's a new article about the psychological responses to money. How does
psychohistory look at their assessments?
Here's the article from DAPH:
http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/ja/money.htm
John Farion
> Waiting For The Pay Off: Psychologists Show That
> 'Money Changes Everything'
> Science Daily
>
> It's been said by everyone from
> Cyndi Lauper to Alex Rodriguez that "money changes
> everything."
>
> Studying delayed gratification and risk, Washington
> University psychologists have found that people are
> more likely to wait on collecting full payment for a
> non-consumable monetary reward than they are for any
> of three consumable rewards -- beer, candy and soda.
> (Eric Chou)
>
> Now psychologists at Washington University in St.
> Louis have published a paper to support that claim.
> Studying delayed gratification and risk, the
> psychologists found that people are more likely to
> wait on collecting full payment for a non-consumable
> monetary reward than they are for any of three
> consumable rewards - beer, candy and soda.
>
> Leonard Green, Ph.D., professor of psychology, and
> Joel Myerson, Ph.D., research professor of
> psychology, in Arts & Sciences at Washington
> University, along with their graduate students,
> Daniel D. Holt and Sara J. Estle, study the effect
> that delay to receipt of a reward has on the
> subjective value of that reward.
>
> Their research looks at factors that affect the
> degree of self-control that people exercise, both
> the factors that increase the degree of self-control
> and those that increase impulsive decision-making.
>
> More specifically, the researchers recently found
> that delayed monetary rewards are discounted less
> steeply than rewards that are directly consumable,
> such as soda.
>
> For instance, if the average person were given the
> choice between an amount of soda right away and $50
> worth of soda that they would have to wait six
> months to get, most people would take significantly
> less than $50 worth of soda now (discounting the
> value of the delayed soda considerably).
>
> In contrast, the person given a choice between an
> amount of money right now and $50 in six months
> would not discount the delayed money nearly as much
> as the soda.
>
> Their paper reporting this research was published in
> the January 2007 edition of Psychological Science.
> The work has far-reaching implications for many
> fields, including marketing, economics and the
> psychology of self-control.
>
> Green and Myerson found that delayed money was
> discounted less steeply than beer, candy and soda,
> which were all discounted at approximately the same
> rate. Additionally, smaller delayed rewards of all
> types were discounted more steeply than
> corresponding larger amounts of rewards.
>
> Interestingly, if the rewards are probabilistic,
> meaning that there is only a chance that one will
> get the reward (say, a 50 percent chance), then
> there is no difference in the rates at which money,
> candy, soda and beer are discounted.
>
> 'Money retains its utility'
>
> Green and Myerson's results suggest that although
> previous researchers have claimed that abused
> substances, such as alcohol, have an inherent
> quality that makes them steeply discounted, abused
> substances may be discounted at the same rate as
> other directly consumables, such as candy and soda,
> at least by people without substance-abuse problems.
>
>
> So what makes money different from directly
> consumable goods?
>
> "Money retains its utility, despite the inconstancy
> of desire," says Green. "Money can be exchanged for
> almost any other reward that one might want, but the
> desire for beer, candy or soda is dependent upon a
> number of factors that vary over time - hunger,
> thirst, etc."
>
> Thus, the average person exercises more self-control
> in waiting for a monetary reward because money is
> always useful, while we have "inconstant desire" for
> things like beer, candy and soda.
>
> On the other hand, when the rewards are
> probabilistic, there is a chance that one might not
> get the money, beer, soda or candy. In this case,
> the average person discounts all the types of reward
> at the same rate.
>
> So although probabilistic and delayed rewards may
> seem to be similar as far as "risk" - after all, you
> risk not getting the reward if there is a delay, and
> if there is some probability that you'll get it,
> then there also is some probability that you won't -
> the way people think about their choices is
> different, depending on whether the outcomes are
> monetary or directly consumable rewards, as well as
> whether the outcomes are delayed or probabilistic.
>
> If left to our own devices ...
>
> Myerson says that findings from their research on
> discounting and self-control can be readily applied
> to savings and investments.
>
> Think of an employer-sponsored 401k retirement plan.
> Allowing automatic payroll deductions on a monthly
> basis would suggest that a participant "intuitively
> understands discounting," says Myerson.
>
> If left to our own devices, he said, many of us
> would spend all of the money each month, and not
> exercise the self-control it takes to invest it
> ourselves.
>
> Thus, we commit to a monthly payroll withdrawal
> because we intuitively understand our tendency to
> discount. We know that we are likely to take a
> smaller, immediate reward rather than wait for the
> larger, long-term reward that comes from saving for
> retirement.
>
> The researchers' work helps in understanding the
> factors that influence choices involving
> certificates of deposit, retirement plans,
> health-club annual memberships, Social Security,
> automatic investments and so on, and also helps in
> the identification of weaknesses in people's
> decision-making processes.
>
> The researchers suggest that such understanding may
> enable people to make better choices - those that
> lead to greater benefits in the long run.
>
> Source: Washington University in St. Louis
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070210173047.htm
---------------------------------
Bored stiff? Loosen up...
Download and play hundreds of games for free on Yahoo! Games.
|
|
 |
|
