When people take their children to the supermarket, they often find them on the shelves.
It even takes 30 minutes to choose a potato chip. Why did they choose it for so long? Is there any way for them to make a quick choice? Dan Hariri, an American professor of behavioral economics, has published a new book, Known Irrationality, which explains various irrational consumption behaviors.
Behavioral economics uses psychoanalysis to study people's economic behaviors, including shopping in supermarkets and handling pensions.
Traditional economists believe that people will conduct economic activities rationally according to their own interests. On June 1, the British media quoted Hariri's new book Known Irrationality as saying: "Man is irrational. We are impulsive and emotional, and we often do things by habit. When faced with many choices, people usually feel embarrassed and can't make a decision. "
Arilli teaches at MIT Business School. He asked his students to do an experiment to see how irrational human beings really are. First, he asked a group of students to write down the last two digits of their social security numbers. Then, he began to ask the students if they were willing to buy a series of products he offered at the same price: including a bottle of Rhone foothills wine and some Belgian chocolates. In the next class auction, he found an interesting phenomenon. The students with the highest social security number in the last two digits always buy goods at the highest price.
In other words, if a commodity is arbitrarily marked with a price, this price can become the guiding price of this commodity. "As long as people believe that something has special value, they will spend a lot of money on it," Hariri said. "That's why people often complain that a small latte is too expensive to replace with a cheaper drink."
In fact, the more choices, the harder it is for people to choose.
In a grocery store in California, the scientists did the following test: They put jam on the shelf. Sometimes there are 6 different kinds of jam, sometimes as many as 24 kinds. You may think that the more choices, the higher the sales. But the opposite is true. "People often don't know which one to choose," Hariri said. "In the end, they generally don't buy it."
But too few choices is not necessarily a good thing. A shop introduced a bread machine, and the sales situation was very bad. When the store put a bigger and more expensive toaster next to it, the sales of the original toaster rose sharply. Hariri said, the reason is simple. Now customers have two choices. "Because one of them is too big and expensive, they can easily make a decision and choose the smaller and cheaper one." .
So, how to make people's economic behavior more rational? Hariri suggested that people should think more before making major decisions, such as mortgage and investment, and try to avoid impulsiveness.
Today, when prices are rising every day, how should we rationally consume? This should be a problem that each of us should pay attention to. What is the standard of rational consumption? MBA Zhu, who once traveled around the world with $3,000, said that cost performance should be the most important measure. If you simply want to save money and don't pursue the best cost performance, you don't need $3,000 to travel around the world, but $65,438+0,000 is enough. But it won't be his choice. In order not to spend a penny sleeping on the main road, it can only be called self-abuse; 10 can stay in a five-star hotel, which is a new frugal life. Neo-frugalism never refuses to consume, but refuses to waste; Not to scrimp and save, but to choose a better way of consumption with your mind. As for how to achieve the best cost performance, it needs to have considerable ability to use money and allocate resources. 1, not tired of the so-called discount, clearance, sale, holiday discount and other propaganda slogans. Insist on buying what is useful and never buy what is useless. For example, we already have a pressure cooker at home, so we will buy another one when we see the cheaper one. Because we have no chance to put it into use immediately, in fact, this expenditure is the most uneconomical and takes up funds. A few days ago, my wife happened to see Rising's price reduction, and quickly bought a serial number from the Internet with her mobile phone. Originally, the computer was not good, but 30 yuan is not good for her. Sometimes we just ignore the waste caused by small expenses. 2, don't follow the trend, don't blindly listen to advertisements, it is best not to buy deceptive things such as melatonin, and learn to think independently. Another example is calcium supplementation, which is popular now. In fact, all calcium supplement products are calcium carbonate. China Pharmacopoeia 2 yuan's calcium gluconate 100 tablets, health care products 100 tablets of calcium products are tens of dollars. Eating this health care product is actually an advertisement. 3. Ladies usually praise you first, such as good figure, good temperament and good skin. Create a friendly atmosphere. Don't let your guard down for this. In fact, she's staring at your pocket. You bought a dress that you shouldn't have bought at a high price. As soon as you walk out of the shop, they will say that you just killed a pig.