20 Comments to “I got a pen!”
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Hi, I’m Dan Ariely. I do research in behavioral economics and try to describe it in plain language. These findings have enriched my life, and my hope is that they will do the same for you.
My latest book, The Upside of Irrationality, explores some positive and some negative ways that irrationality plays out in our lives.
When we make decisions we think we're in control. But are we?
Excerpts and Videos
Dan refer your editor to: http://www.amazon.com/Porsche-Carrera-Cabriolet-Blue-Model/dp/B001DXEZKO/ref=sr_1_sc_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1324483989&sr=8-4-spell. You may get one then. You deserve it. Thanks for all your insights. ED
This is the only economic benefit for buying gift cards. Because it has less optionality (which always is valued positively in financial markets), it is worth less than the cash.
The reason is that it forces someone to buy something for themselves and removes the guilt.
Cash value – (embedded option value of cash) + (value of spending decision made) > 0
However; I tend to keep the gift cards for so long sometimes I can’t use them any more because the sense of freedom it gives me exceeds the materialization of what I end up buying. (Different idea)
אוהבת לשמוע את הלקחים שלך, תמיד מעניין.
Claire’s guilt factor withheld her from buying the Porsche
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Enjoy the pen and Happy Holidays Dan!
Thank you, you have cheered me up and made me laugh! I love your enthusiasm, joy and inquisitiveness. Your books are entertaining and thought provoking and provide me with many anecdotes for my A Level Economics students.
Happy holidays and here’s hoping Santa remembers the Porsche!
x
selling out for a pen… the shame
I’m glad to come across your blog. I watched your TED talk and loved it.
About the guilt factor … my friend and I were in love with some expensive but lovely journals. Neither of us would go and buy one for ourselves though. So we decided to buy one for each other as a graduation gift. And we did
Oh, and happy holidays !
Dan, I think this counts as a humble brag.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7290719/november-humblebrag
Dan, Maybe your wife told Claire she was getting you the Porshe. Good luck with that one!
Dan,
Happy holidays to you too!
he obviously wants a hat this time
Dan, Thank you so much for the enjoyment you have brought me this year with your blog and videos. Wishing you Happy Holidays and a great and exciting New Year. Charlie
Ha!
Fantastic. 1) I should write things that secretly inform others of what I want… 2) I collect nice pens; does this mean I don’t have the guilt I should have?
I am not sure I want to eliminate my evolutionary advantage – I want to fine-tune my guilt – not eliminate it! So this is about optimizing our lives to learn pen tricks like this to manage our amygdalas.
For everything else there is Mastercard.
Hello Dr. Ariely,
I had a similar experience along these lines this week. I told my Mother I wanted for an ipod for Christmas, not being aware of how much they cost. Instead, I was given a much cheaper mp3 player manufactured by a competitor. My Mom told me if I wanted the ipod instead, returning this mp3 player would not be a problem. So, I looked at some consumer reviews on the mp3 player I had received, and saw that there were many complaints about it, that it broke down inexplicably after a month or so. I decided I would take my Mom up on her offer and exchange it. She told me that was fine, and that I could go pick out the ipod myself and she would reimburse me. When I went to the apple store, I saw that the ipod cost 200 dollars, more than 3 times as much as the mp3 player I was given had cost. Knowing this, even though it wasn’t my money, and even though I had been given the go ahead, I couldn’t bring myself to buy it and decided to take my chances with the 60 dollar player. However, had my Mom bought me the ipod in the first place, I would have had no problem accepting it. Anyway, so far so good with the cheap mp3 player, let’s hope it doesn’t break down on me.
Justin Marino
Dan, could there be another reason people struggle to make a purchase themselves but happily accept the same gifted to them by a spouse? I’m thinking there is a shift when I compre the cost-benefit of the hat for myself, because the benefit goes soley to me while the cost is shared with my spouse. I may say the hat gives me X units of satisfaction and costs Y (some number more than X) units of value. I have difficulty measuring the joint value because I’m painfully aware that it is only I that value the hat. However, when my spouse gets the hat for me she is sanctioning the valuation by saying she thinks the value of the hat (including satisfaction to me, attractivenesss to her and her pleasure at seeing me happy) is greater than the cost. She inherently has more information than I have (she knows I like the hat if I’ve told her, and she knows what she thinks and I dont) and so her valuation is more robust and it makes sense for her to make that decision. Of course, it would be better to create a smoother transmission of economic information (i.e., it would be great if we could talk openly and honetly about what we want and what we can afford), so that I feel empowered to spend money in a way that satisfies me and she supports (and vice versa). But, in an environment with sub-optimal data this kind of behavior seems perfectly rational to me. I tell her what i want and she identifies what she feels is an appropriate monetary limit. It sounds like the free market, with her gift sending a message about how much she values me. ALso, I can infer from the gifts she gets me how clearly I transmit info to her and hw big the differential is between what I think Im worth (the hat) and what she thinks I’m worth (at lousy tie).
mark
That was really funny! You may have lots of pens coming your way after that!
Thanks for keeping such a fun blog!
-Radhika
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