Jonathan Chapman, Division of Social Science, New York University Abu Dhabi, will give a presentation via Zoom in this week’s Social, Economic, and Decision Psychology research seminar (Thursday 31 March, 17:00-18:00).

Loss attitudes in the U.S. population: Evidence from Dynamically Optimized Sequential Experimentation (DOSE)

To measure individual-level loss aversion in a representative sample of the U.S. population (N = 2000), we introduce DOSE | Dynamically Optimized Sequential Experimentation. We found that around 50% of the U.S. population is loss tolerant. This is counter to earlier findings, which mostly come from lab/student samples, that a strong majority of participants are loss averse. Loss attitudes are correlated with cognitive ability: loss aversion is more prevalent in people with high cognitive ability, and loss tolerance is more common in those with low cognitive ability. We also use DOSE to document facts about risk and time preferences, and demonstrate that DOSE elicitations are more accurate, more stable across time, and faster to administer than standard methods.

Daniela Jopp, Institute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, will give a presentation via Zoom in this week’s Social, Economic, and Decision Psychology research seminar (Thursday 24 March, 12:00-13:00; Seminarraum 00.004, Missionsstr. 64a).

Centenarians: Between vulnerability and resilience

Given their exceptional longevity, centenarians have long been considered as examples of successful aging. Yet, with the rise of the numbers of the oldest-old and the parallel increases in empirical studies, findings suggest that centenarians may show vulnerability and resilience at the same time. Of high interest, but little investigated, are also the mechanisms that help centenarians to maintain superior levels of well-being and quality of life, despite being confronted with loss of resources and other difficulties. This presentation will assemble information from international centenarian studies investigating vulnerability and resilience across multiple domains of functioning (e.g., health, cognitive functioning, social relations, well-being, and psychological strengths). A specific focus will be put on findings from the Fordham Centenarian Study (USA), the Second Heidelberg Centenarian Study (Germany) and the ongoing SWISS100 Study (Switzerland). The presentation will furthermore offer some insights on how centenarians have experienced the COVID-19 pandemic, representing an interesting opportunity to study centenarians’ vulnerability and resilience.

Florian Hett, Chair of the Digital Economics Group, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, will give a presentation via Zoom in this week’s Social, Economic, and Decision Psychology research seminar (Thursday 17 March, 17:00-18:00).

Time inconsistency and overdraft use: Evidence from transaction data and behavioral measurement experiments

Households regularly fail to make optimal financial decisions. But what are the underlying reasons for this? Using two conceptually distinct measures of individual time inconsistency, one based on bank account transaction data and one based on behavioral measurement experiments, we show that the excessive use of bank account overdrafts is linked to time inconsistency. By contrast, there is no correlation between a survey-based measure of financial literacy and overdraft usage. Our results indicate that consumer education and information may not suffice to overcome mistakes in households’ financial decision-making, specifically the excessive use of overdrafts. Rather, our results suggest that behaviorally motivated interventions targeting specific biases in decision-making should also be considered as potentially effective policy tools.