Loss aversion is not what we think it is

60 点作者 abeinstein超过 9 年前

11 条评论

razzaj超过 9 年前

In his book Predictably Irrational Dan Ariely described loss aversion by means of a set of experiments that go something like this:A- take a person and promise her a substantial reward against completing a set of tasks. Measure stress level during tasks executionB- take a person and give her the substantial reward up-front, but take back part of the reward for each task she fails. Measure stress level during tasks execution.Ariely experiments showed stress was significantly higher with subjects that were in Experiment B. So much so that one of the subjects took the money and ran away by jumping out of a window. Ariely attributed the difference in stress levels to "Aversion to loss".There is a difference between the scenario depicted by the experiments, and the cases in the OP's article. IN the article the author compares DMU as it changes from, say, 10K->2K vs 10K->18K, and argues that the latter has less impact than the former. Whereas in Ariely's experiments it is really comparing 2K-10K vs 10K-2K and showing that even if the Delta is the same, and both points are the same, subjects still experienced a different level of emotional distress due a visceral aversion to loss.

carbocation超过 9 年前

In summary, what is often described as "loss aversion" is actually just an expected property of diminishing marginal utility, and does not require a new term to explain it.Loss aversion, instead, is state dependence that makes you feel worse about state X if you came from state X+1, and better about it if you came from state X-1 (assuming X is, say, wealth).It seems to me that "loss aversion" might be reconstituted as "utility hysteresis" to avoid the ambiguity.

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Tloewald超过 9 年前

His argument would be correct if the effect size were tiny, i.e. people got as much satisfaction from gaining $102 as from losing $100, but it's a much bigger effect than that. E.g. I will spend half an hour searching for a lost $5 widget (e.g. a lens cap or an iPhone recharging cable... ok a $20 widget) when I could easily earn far more money doing almost anything else (or keep my extremely expensive free time).Also, recouping a loss is far more satisfying than an equivalent windfall, and DMU completely fails to explain that.

jellicle超过 9 年前

Ugh. For a person with $1,000,000 in assets, the difference between +/- $100 in marginal utility is almost zero.Yet all the psychological studies will show that said person HATES losing $100 much more than they like gaining $100. It's a major effect.Heck, if you even give people the same amount of money but FRAME it as a loss versus a gain, people change their behavior. The marginal utility is identical!Loss aversion is MUCH larger than any difference in marginal utility. It's a real thing, that has huge effects on our politics, our economics, our media and our entire lives.TL;DR: Article writer has absolutely no idea what he is talking about.

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fizzbizz超过 9 年前

I disagree.If you come by and swipe a quarter off my desk, I'm going to be way more pissed than if you came by my desk and left a quarter.The delta of my being pissed is way bigger than the DMU of +/- $.25, or my feeling if I'd parted ways with that $.25 in a variety of other manners.I don't know if what I'm experiencing is or isn't "loss aversion". But it's not "just DMU".This is an important distinction. In my experience, people equate "loss aversion" with "unwilling departure of money" and "windfall" -- i.e. being unwilling to be swindled or ripped off.

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austinjp超过 9 年前

Interesting. A way of testing the author's assertion would be to ask: who feels worse, a person who gains then loses $1000, or a person who loses then gains $1000?If there is a difference, then the order of events has impact beyond the initial/end states.

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mangeletti超过 9 年前

I'd also add that loss aversion's supposed "reference dependence" is addressed by a more fundamental concept, a cognitive bias: anchoring[1].It's interesting how these (especially pertaining behavioral economics and behavioral studies in general) create compound ideas from combinations of various fundamental ideas. Sometimes, it adds value. Other times, it simply obfuscates the truth.1. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring</a>

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js8超过 9 年前

I think the article is confusing. Loss aversion is a property of human decision making, while diminishing marginal utility is a property of some economic system.The two may be the same, if you believe in (or talk about) subjective utility. But I think subjective utility is a terrible concept to begin with, so better not to go that route.

mrow84超过 9 年前

It seems to me that you can reverse the sense of the author's conclusion by changing the initial conditions:The change in utility by going from 2k up to 10k (~ +1.3) is significantly more than the change in utility by going from 18k down to 10k (~ -0.55).In the simple model provided the change in utility caused by a change in wealth, positive or negative, depends on your starting wealth. This is different to the "pop definition" of loss aversion, which seems to be making a claim that the ratio of the change in utility between gains and losses is approximately independent of your starting point.I should point out that I don't know what the correct formulation of loss aversion is, it just seems to me that the argument presented is a bit weak.

mazsa超过 9 年前

FYI: Rabin,2000: "Diminishing marginal utility of wealth cannot explain risk aversion" <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=12987999332583387312" rel="nofollow">https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=12987999332583387...</a> cf. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=12987999332583387312" rel="nofollow">https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1298799933258338731...</a>

contravariant超过 9 年前

Bit of an overcomplicated proof that DMU implies that gains add less utility than an equivalent loss removes. A simpler proof goes as follows:Let U be a concave utility function, and let 'w' and 'e' be some amount of 'wealth'. Concavity implies:U(w+e)/2 + U(w-e)/2 <= U(w)henceU(w+e) + U(w-e) <= 2*U(w)rearranging the terms we find(U(w+e) - U(w)) + (U(w-e) - U(w)) <= 0and thereforeU(w+e) - U(w) <= U(w) - U(w-e).So gains add less utility than losses remove.