When Being Wasteful is Better than Feeling Wasteful

Ro'i Zultan, Maya Bar-Hillel and Nitsan Guy

Discussion Paper Series from The Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Abstract: "Waste not want not" expresses our culture's aversion to waste. "I could have gotten the same thing for less" is a sentiment that can diminish pleasure in a transaction. We study people's willingness to "pay" to avoid this spoiler. In one scenario, participants imagined they were looking for a rental apartment, and had bought a subscription to an apartment listing. If a cheaper subscription had been declined, respondents preferred not to discover post hoc that it would have sufficed. Specifically, they preferred ending their quest for the ideal apartment after seeing more, rather than fewer, apartments. Other scenarios produced similar results. We conclude that people may sometimes prefer to be wasteful in order to avoid feeling wasteful.

Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2010-05
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Published in Judgment and Decision Making, 5( 7), 489-496

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Related works:
Working Paper: When being wasteful appears better than feeling wasteful (2011)
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