Awareness of low self-control: Theory and evidence from a homeless shelter

Elif Incekara-Hafalir and Sera Linardi
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Elif Incekara Hafalir ()

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2017, vol. 61, issue C, 39-54

Abstract: Survey measures of self-control provide a potential low-cost alternative to incentivized elicitation. However, asking respondents to introspect on their self-control problems may instead measure their awareness of them, especially in populations with low self-control. We illustrate this with the Ameriks, Caplin, Leahy, and Tyler (2007) survey, which captures self-control problems through the deviation between self-reported ideal and predicted behavior (Expected Deviation, ED). Previous empirical evidence from high income or highly educated populations correlates larger ED with worse outcomes. We theoretically show that the reverse will be true in settings where awareness can play a large role: when self-control is low and costly commitment devices are available. We empirically show that, for residents of a homeless shelter, ED is positively correlated to savings in shelter lockboxes, a costly commitment device. This correlation is stronger for those likely to experience more self-control problems: individuals with past addiction problems.

Keywords: Self-control; Consumer behavior; Surveys; Commitment devices; Awareness; Sophistication; Quasi-hyperbolic discounting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D14 D9 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487017301320
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:joepsy:v:61:y:2017:i:c:p:39-54

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2017.02.015

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Psychology is currently edited by G. Antonides and D. Read

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