Archive for the ‘Psychology’ Category
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Is It Better When You “Win” It?
Ebay has been running an interesting campaign over the last couple of weeks. You may have seen a series of “Shop Victoriously” commercials. These show people in competition for some kind of trinket or collector’s item, such as a classic lunch box or an urn. By the end of the commercial one person stands with the item as a trophy. On some commercials the voice over is, “It’s better when you win it.” You can read more about this marketing campaign on Ebay’s website.
For time to time, my wife has come to me saying that […] -
Keeping a Level Head in a Down Market - Should you Stay the Course?
Recently, Trent from The Simple Dollar, one of the best personal finance bloggers I read wrote, Basic Investing In A Down Market (Or Any Time You Feel Nervous). In it he too a question from a reader, Lila, who was nervous about her 401K investments in this market. Trent suggested that she sell her holding and wait out this wild market.
JLP of All Financial Matters wrote a follow-up article on it, saying that Trent let him down. JLP is of the opinion that one shouldn’t try to time the market and selling in the face of fear […] -
Advertising versus Previous Experience
Earlier this week, I was reading how marketing affects how children perceive food at Get Rich Slowly. The original study claims that low-income children from age 3-5 perceived store-bought food in McDonalds’ wrappers as better tasting.
Five immediate thoughts came to mind:Was it advertising or marketing that made the food appear to be taster… or was it the positive previous experience that the children had with the restaurant’s food? Its one thing to be drawn in by marketing, but quite another to project positive past memory to a current experience. The article mentioned that “Just two of the […]
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Finances: Don’t Take them So Personally
I’ve got some personal finance blasphemy to get off my chest. It will probably even ruffle the feathers of more than a few personal finance writers. I’ll take that risk, because I hate to see money wasted. People are wasting money every day and not realizing it. They aren’t even spending it, but these people are just giving it away for nothing in return.
How are people giving away this money? They ignore math to feel good about what they are doing. That doesn’t make a lot of sense now, but after a couple of […]
