Rationalizing self-defeating behaviors: Theory and evidence

Lars J. Lefgren, Olga Stoddard and John Stovall ()

Journal of Health Economics, 2021, vol. 76, issue C

Abstract: Why do individuals engage in self-defeating behaviors like self-harm, addiction, and risky sexual behaviors? Why do they experience the apathy of depression or inaction when trapped by multiple competing problems? We propose a framework for explaining these and other related behaviors based on the insight that individuals can only experience a limited number of latent stimuli to which they are exposed. We conduct an experiment to test this model and find that more than two thirds of the subjects behave consistent with our theoretical framework.

Keywords: Self-defeating behaviors; Theory; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629620310535
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Are Two Bads Better Than One? A Model of Sensory Limitations (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:76:y:2021:i:c:s0167629620310535

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2020.102407

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Health Economics is currently edited by J. P. Newhouse, A. J. Culyer, R. Frank, K. Claxton and T. McGuire

More articles in Journal of Health Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().