The Journal of Behavioural Decision Making published a special issue on affect and decision-making last year. Thanks to Michael Daly for pointing out some of the papers
The Ariely and Loewenstein paper shows that sexual arousal had a strong impact on(1)how appealing people find a wide range of sexual stimuli and activities, (2) their willingness to engage in morally questionable behavior in order to obtain sexual gratification, and (3) their willingness to engage in unsafe sex when sexually aroused. No shit!
there has been a few people who claim that some of the behavioural economics work takes fairly obvious psych work and dresses it up as a new critique of economics. I dont think that at all about Lowenstein et al and some of their work has been truly pathbreaking. However, i do have to say that the paper you refer to doesnt seem to add anything to similar papers in psychology and there is a huge literature showing the effects of mood and arousal on decision-making. However, as the paper suggests, this type of work is not factored in to economic models so maybe there is a role for these type of papers. We have been having the debate internally because Ken is putting together a set of experiments that to me seem very novel with respect to the economics literature but, which according to Ken, are fairly standard in the psych literature. the fact that preferences (as opposed to decisions) are not stationary but in fact vary with circumstances does seem interesting and the paper is a bit more subtle than you are giving it credit for but overall i did think it was a bit obvious when i read it first time compared to some of their other work on things like preferences for sequences.
Naturally I hadn't read the paper just the abstract & I am sure the paper is more interesting but you can imagine the reaction of many punters would have been similar to my comment (Porn makes people horny,shock!). Can we really identify preferences from decisions? I quite like cider and an ad' puts me in the mood to actually have one- is that endogenous preferences? Not sure
The findings are in themselves unsurprising and I think this is in one way a goal of the article as through founding a solid and generalizable basis for future research within a dual-systems (impulsive-reflective)theory of behaviour this can act as a springboard for future studies with a lesser degree of obviousness. An example would be to substitute deprivation or hunger for sexual arousal to demonstrate how this state influences (1) how appealing people find a wide range of food types (low-high carb etc) and activities (convenience foods and take-away versus slow-foods & cooking), and as (2)& (3) are pretty much of the same vein they could be reinterpreted in terms of obesity as their willingness to engage in societally questionable or high health risk behaviours (overeating associated moral judgements of gluttony and ignoring health risk information) in order to obtain satiation. The idea could probably be applied to most addictive behaviours such as gambling and substance abuse. On a related aside one interesting and highly cited paper by a TCIN researcher Hugh Garavan supports the idea that sexual stimuli and drug related stimuli have similar neurological effects http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/ cgi/content/abstract/157/11/1789. The measurement of such effects is useful in order to determine what has been termed in the behavioural economics literature as the "cost of self-control". This cost is dependent on stimulus characteristics and context effects (proximity, accessibility, framing, reference-dependence) aswell as personal characteristics such as background and also the use of psychological techniques to improve willpower (implementation intentions etc.(. Overall, this is a straightforward enough paper alright, but a starting point for alot more I reckon.
4 comments:
The Ariely and Loewenstein paper shows that sexual arousal had a strong impact on(1)how appealing people find a wide range of sexual stimuli and activities, (2) their willingness to engage in morally questionable behavior in order to obtain sexual gratification, and (3) their willingness to engage in unsafe sex when sexually aroused.
No shit!
there has been a few people who claim that some of the behavioural economics work takes fairly obvious psych work and dresses it up as a new critique of economics. I dont think that at all about Lowenstein et al and some of their work has been truly pathbreaking. However, i do have to say that the paper you refer to doesnt seem to add anything to similar papers in psychology and there is a huge literature showing the effects of mood and arousal on decision-making. However, as the paper suggests, this type of work is not factored in to economic models so maybe there is a role for these type of papers. We have been having the debate internally because Ken is putting together a set of experiments that to me seem very novel with respect to the economics literature but, which according to Ken, are fairly standard in the psych literature. the fact that preferences (as opposed to decisions) are not stationary but in fact vary with circumstances does seem interesting and the paper is a bit more subtle than you are giving it credit for but overall i did think it was a bit obvious when i read it first time compared to some of their other work on things like preferences for sequences.
Naturally I hadn't read the paper just the abstract & I am sure the paper is more interesting but you can imagine the reaction of many punters would have been similar to my comment (Porn makes people horny,shock!).
Can we really identify preferences from decisions? I quite like cider and an ad' puts me in the mood to actually have one- is that endogenous preferences? Not sure
The findings are in themselves unsurprising and I think this is in one way a goal of the article as through founding a solid and generalizable basis for future research within a dual-systems (impulsive-reflective)theory of behaviour this can act as a springboard for future studies with a lesser degree of obviousness. An example would be to substitute deprivation or hunger for sexual arousal to demonstrate how this state influences (1) how appealing people find a wide range of food types (low-high carb etc) and activities (convenience foods and take-away versus slow-foods & cooking), and as (2)& (3) are pretty much of the same vein they could be reinterpreted in terms of obesity as their willingness to engage in societally questionable or high health risk behaviours (overeating associated moral judgements of gluttony and ignoring health risk information) in order to obtain satiation.
The idea could probably be applied to most addictive behaviours such as gambling and substance abuse. On a related aside one interesting and highly cited paper by a TCIN researcher Hugh Garavan supports the idea that sexual stimuli and drug related stimuli have similar neurological effects http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/
cgi/content/abstract/157/11/1789.
The measurement of such effects is useful in order to determine what has been termed in the behavioural economics literature as the "cost of self-control". This cost is dependent on stimulus characteristics and context effects (proximity, accessibility, framing, reference-dependence) aswell as personal characteristics such as background and also the use of psychological techniques to improve willpower (implementation intentions etc.(. Overall, this is a straightforward enough paper alright, but a starting point for alot more I reckon.
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