The disgust-promotes-disposal effect
- Authors
- Han, Seunghee; Lerner, Jennifer S.; Zeckhauser, Richard
- Issue Date
- Apr-2012
- Publisher
- SPRINGER
- Keywords
- Disgust; Status quo bias; Decision making; Disposal; Emotion
- Citation
- JOURNAL OF RISK AND UNCERTAINTY, v.44, no.2, pp 101 - 113
- Pages
- 13
- Journal Title
- JOURNAL OF RISK AND UNCERTAINTY
- Volume
- 44
- Number
- 2
- Start Page
- 101
- End Page
- 113
- URI
- https://scholarworks.bwise.kr/cau/handle/2019.sw.cau/20431
- DOI
- 10.1007/s11166-012-9139-3
- ISSN
- 0895-5646
1573-0476
- Abstract
- Individuals tend toward status quo bias: preferring existing options over new ones. There is a countervailing phenomenon: Humans naturally dispose of objects that disgust them, such as foul-smelling food. But what if the source of disgust is independent of the object? We induced disgust via a film clip to see if participants would trade away an item (a box of unidentified office supplies) for a new item (alternative unidentified box). Such "incidental disgust" strongly countered status quo bias. Disgusted people exchanged their present possession 51% of the time compared to 32% for people in a neutral state. Thus, disgust promotes disposal. A second experiment tested whether a warning about this tendency would diminish it. It did not. These results indicate a robust disgust-promotes-disposal effect. Because these studies presented real choices with tangible rewards, their findings have implications for everyday choices and raise caution about the effectiveness of warnings about biases.
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Collections - College of Business & Economics > School of Business Administration > 1. Journal Articles
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