Why is it sometimes extravagant to spend money?

The money may not be in your "mental account"

　　Let's talk mentally

　　column host

　　Yangzi Evening News/Ziniu News reporter Wang Rui

　　During the May 1st holiday that just passed, many people were "retaliatory consumption", and they regretted it in an instant - why spend money so impulsive!

Maybe it can make consumption more economical and cost-effective.

In fact, the behavior of "spending money" has a lot to do with psychology and sociology, and the academic circle has even derived a new interdisciplinary discipline for it - behavioral finance.

How can we make our daily consumption more rational?

Chen Tingqiang, deputy dean of the School of Economics and Management of Nanjing University of Technology, was invited to analyze the rational consumer psychology behind "behavioral finance" for readers.

　　Yangzi Evening News/Ziniu News reporter Yang Tianzi

　　1

　　Feel like you're not spending your money on something?

That's because the money is split between different "mental accounts" by you

　　Regarding "spending money", there is a very common example in our life: my mother took a fancy to a coat of great value, and was distressed by the money, so she was reluctant to buy it.

After my father learned about it, he did not hesitate to buy it as a gift for his mother. The mother was overjoyed and felt that the coat was a gift "falling from the sky".

This kind of psychological pleasure is actually an "illusion", because the money that Dad spent on buying a coat is actually still from the "family account".

But why is mom so happy?

This is exactly what "mental accounting" does "under the hood".

　　Professor Chen Tingqiang, deputy dean of the School of Economics and Management of Nanjing University of Technology, told reporters that the reason why my mother felt that the coat was "falling from the sky" and no longer felt distressed about the money for the coat was that she felt that the money for the coat did not come from her "account". ”, while the father’s gift is included in the “emotional account” as his own acquisition.

Mental accounting is an important concept in behavioral finance, proposed by Richard Thaler, a professor of behavioral sciences at the University of Chicago.

He believes that in addition to the actual account of the wallet, there is another "mental account" in the human mind.

People will psychologically divide the expenditures or benefits that are objectively equivalent in reality into different accounts.

For example, we will assign the salary to the "part-time income" account accumulated through hard work; regard the year-end bonus as an additional gift and put it in the "reward" account; and the money won from buying lottery tickets, To the "pie from the sky" account.

　　For the money in the "part-time income" account, we will be careful and prudent in spending.

As for the money in the "reward" account, we will spend it with a more relaxed attitude, such as buying some clothes that we are reluctant to buy on weekdays as a New Year's gift for ourselves.

The money in the "pie from the sky" account is the most useless, usually "in a hurry, and in a hurry".

This is where "mental accounts" come into play.

　　2

　　Would you rather practice to get injured than waste your fitness card? Compared with "risk", most people are more averse to "loss"

　　Let's look at another case.

If you spend 1,000 yuan for a monthly card at the gym, you can exercise 10 times a month.

But at the end of the month, you suddenly found that in the past 30 days, you have only "checked in" to the gym twice. Obviously, you are lazy.

One thousand yuan is just "wasted"?

At this moment, the reaction of the vast majority of people must be unwilling, and they will choose to go to the gym for a few more vigorous workouts before the fitness card expires at the end of the month, in order to achieve the goal of "no loss", even if they "injured" themselves. No hesitation.

This is a typical loss aversion in behavioral finance.

　　"There are two concepts in behavioral finance, 'risk aversion' and 'loss aversion'." Chen Tingqiang introduced that most of us are risk averse, but it is not impossible to accept risk.

But loss aversion is different. It is a typical manifestation of people making a decision that is beneficial to "self-interest" under uncertain conditions, and it is also a manifestation of human nature.

"In the case of applying for a gym card, 'not going to the gym' is a loss for consumers. The loss brings people a worse experience, and people will have 'extreme pain and regret' when facing the loss. It is a kind of psychology, which is why there is the result of 'doing yourself at all costs'."

　　"There is a similar case, people's social interaction." Chen Tingqiang, for example, in an uncertain environment, people will choose "known or familiar" people, things, and things, which will make them feel more reliable.

For example, with the emergence of the "Hometown Association" organization, when people come to unfamiliar cities, people will be more inclined to be friends with their fellow villagers, which is a reflection of people's perception of "risk".

　　3

　　How can we "spend money" more rationally?

Expert Advice: Reduce Subjective Emotions When Making Decisions

　　Professor Chen Tingqiang told reporters that "behavioral finance" is a discipline that intersects with finance, psychology, behavior, sociology and other disciplines, trying to reveal the irrational behavior and decision-making rules of the financial market.

This discipline emerged in the mid-1980s.

At that time, stock market practitioners found out that the fluctuation of stock prices could find a regular pattern. In the fluctuation of stock prices from Monday to Friday, the rate of return was the lowest on Monday and the highest on Friday.

There is no way to explain this finding with traditional financial theory, so economists have begun to turn their attention to interdisciplinary subjects such as psychology.

Nowadays, "behavioral finance" has become a new and popular subject in colleges and universities, and is deeply loved by students.

　　"This is because everyone has a psychological behavior. On Friday, everyone will predict what changes will occur in the two-day policy over the weekend and make a move to buy or sell stocks." Chen Tingqiang said.

Based on this discovery, economists began to analyze the deviation and abnormality of market entities in market behavior based on psychological knowledge, "the definition is very written, and strives to establish a system that can correctly reflect the actual decision-making behavior of market entities and market operation conditions. The descriptive model of ', in layman's terms, is to be able to know through analysis how to 'explore' people's psychological and behavioral responses."

　　How can we make our daily consumption more rational?

Chen Tingqiang suggested that when making consumption decisions, try to reduce the substitution of personal emotions. You can make decisions based on your actual needs and make decisions through rational data analysis and demand analysis. When facing large-scale consumption, you should listen to more experienced people. Or the advice of professionals to reduce the subjective emotional color of decision-making, which can make economic behavior more objective and rational.