>It's probably a cognitive psychology effect rather than a social psychology one. Don't assumed that the social context is always the most important. There's a lot of our thinking that is very robust across all known social circumstances, probaly hard-wired in, so that atention to the social context is actually misleading.
At one level that is true, but only part of the truth. Emotional reactions are hard wired, but precisely what stimulates them is sometimes learned. Not learned in the sense of deliberately training your brain to react in a certain way, but often just induced as a result of some experience or set of experiences. The primitive brain is designed to unconsciously learn that way, but some of those responses can be pretty hard to shake off even when one's rational self realises they are inappropriate.
> The endowment effect is probably a very good example of this. Also along these lines: cognitive dissonance and the related phenomenon of sour grapes (adaptive preference formation, or "I do not want what I have not got"), and various other things usefully explored by Jon Elster in his books on the social implications of cognitive spychology, Sour Grapes, Ulysses and the Sirens, and other books jks
Feel free to explain his theories to me at any time. I'm fascinated by that sort of thing.
I'll give you an example that may be relevant, which I came across. As I mentioned, I'm a member of a housing co-operative. It houses people on low incomes, such as myself and calculates rent based on income. Anyhow, a few years back I suggested re-structuring our rent to take maximum advantage of a federal rent subsidy, which pays low income people a Rent Assistance supplement equal to 75% of rent paid over a certain threshold, up to a cut-off point.
It would have meant average rent increases for all tenants of about $20 pw, but at the same time everyone would have received an increase of $15, on average, in welfare benefits. The advantage for us comes from the fact that as well as being tenants, we are effectively the landlords as well, so we are paying the rent to ourselves and can spend it to our advantage. My suggestion also entailed substantially increasing the funds set aside for property maintenance and widening the definition, so as to ensure that each tenant got back the full value of the rent increase, even though the real cost to them would only have been 25%.
Interestingly, many of them were so dim-witted that they rejected the idea. Refused to believe it was feasible, refused to even accept that the subsidy was available in some cases, made all sorts of excuses. It took years to get it accepted and only then when a crisis erupted to shake them from their complacency did they reluctantly agree. Even then, a small number mindlessly refused to accept that anything needed to be done, they actually advocated that the co-op ignore the threat of bankruptcy.
Anyhow, it was an education for me. I've got out of that co-op now and into one where my ideas for maximising every available tax and welfare advantage are more appreciated.
I think that was a prime example of this "endowment effect". But it needs closer examination of the context before you just say this is a normal or natural way for people to think. I understand something about how those people were thinking and I can suggest several entirely rational theories for their apparently irrational decisions, based on my observations. Only theories, would need further experimentation to confirm or deny them of course. But all I'm saying is that human motivations are very complex, way more complex than is credited by simply asserting that people's brains are wired to react that way.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas