Tag Archives: evolutionary psychology

Train Your Brain to Spend Smarter: A Chat With BeyondThePurchase.org

A few months ago Linda Lombardi, a writer for the website Learnvest, asked us if she could conduct a Q & A to learn how our research helps people spend and save their money in ways that result in the most happiness. While … Continue reading

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What is hedonism? A lesson from Dorian Gray.

I must admit, when I was in high school I was more likely to read the sports page of the Dallas Morning News than my English assignments. But, for some reason, there was one book that I couldn’t put down: … Continue reading

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What drives us to get our bling on

According to the urban dictionary, the term bling came in to the modern vocabulary in the 1990s, possibly imported from Jamaica by American rappers, and meant to indicate either the imagined play of light bouncing off shiny jewelry, or the sound … Continue reading

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Sunshine on my portfolio makes me happy

There are armies of very smart, very well educated, numbers- and facts-focused people on Wall Street and in other stock exchanges around the globe. The sharpest minds from the best schools compete at the highest levels for any advantage at … Continue reading

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And the poor get poorer: How our life histories shape our response to financial trouble

When “primed” (reminded, made to think about) with threats to their financial wellbeing, people who were poorer as children were more likely to respond by making more impulsive, riskier choices than usual, whereas people from more secure backgrounds did the opposite. Continue reading

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Do Chick-magnets really work? Corvettes, Testosterone & Peahens

We all know the cliché of the middle-aged man who responds to a “mid-life crisis” by buying a Corvette. Other cultures and times have their own versions of the Corvette, but the principle appears to be universal: when men feel … Continue reading

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En Fuego: How “Clumpy” Fruit Influences Sports (and Stock Market) Gambling

Evolution favored a tendency to expect “clumps” of resources. The cave man who stumbled upon a small bush with berries in it, then scoured the area nearby for more such bushes, would have fared better than his neighbor who saw the bush, ate what it offered, then moved on without looking for more of the same. As a result, we see hot streaks and perceive momentum where there are really just random occurrences of one outcome or another — like flipping a coin 1,000 times and getting occasional long “streaks” of either heads or tails. Continue reading

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Why A Bird in My Hand is Worth Two Anywhere Else

Our natural inclination is to value what we already have more highly than others would. When considering whether it is worth hanging on to that stock, or whether we should accept a price for our used car, try to step back and consider the thing more objectively. Ask yourself how you would establish the value of that item if you encountered it for the first time. You might make a better decision. Continue reading

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Don’t go shopping (for anything) on an empty stomach

We have all heard the expression, Don’t go shopping on an empty stomach. The common wisdom is that if you’re hungry and you go grocery shopping, you’re likely to buy that king size bag of Doritos and the gallon of … Continue reading

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I’ll just have what you’re having: On feeling left out and buying our way back in

Imagine yourself in this situation. You’ve been asked to participate in a series of marketing studies. That’s fine, because you are getting course credit for it. The experimenter tells you that you are going to record a short video introduction … Continue reading

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