experiments

“Cognitive economics aims to take into account the cognitive processes of individuals in economic theory, both on the level of the agent and on the level of their dynamic interactions and the resulting collective phenomena.”
My Study Proposals from PSYCH 458 – links to original papers within

• #1:  IKEA Effect | You’ll value something you build more than something you don’t, even if that building is trivial.
• #2:  Professional Traders and Myopic Loss Aversion | Myopic Loss Aversion and speed of thought are both essential though seemingly contradictory skills for professional traders.
• #3:  Opportunity Cost Neglect | Opportunity Cost Neglect occurs in the general population as implicit alternatives are generally not accessed when considering a focal choice without explicit prompting.
• #4: Incidental values from environment affect decisions | Incidental values affect decision making about money, risk and delay, suggesting that there are perhaps no constant psycho-economic functions that inform our decision making.
• #5: Distinction Bias | Distinction bias identifies the disconnect between people’s predictions for how they will feel in an experience versus how they actually feel in that experience.
• #6: Restraint Bias | Restraint bias identifies how people tend to overestimate their capability to control impulses.
• #7: Intuitive Inhibition Failure | Although we give intuitive, stereotype-based responses it seems that our brains also tend to work out a reasoned response as well, as evidenced by our conflict detection apparatus lighting up during these tasks.
• #8: Affective Psychology of Value | Concavity in value interpretation is not only influenced by the rate of satiation but also on how affect is used to identify value. When feeling is used to determine value, value increases with higher concavity than when calculation is used.
• #9: Investment and Emotion | Certain types of lesions inhibiting emotions can be helpful in the decision making processes in some situations, like investment decisions.
•  #10: Future self-continuity and saving | People who can relate more to their future selves would be more likely to save present pleasure for the benefit of that future self.
•  #11:  The Psychological Consequences of Money | This study presented evidence that priming about money leads to antisocial and more individualistic behaviour.

from a seminar called psych 458 cognitive economics with Dr. Derek Koehler at uWaterloo fall 2013

I loved this course. Reading three papers each week, writing a follow up study on one. It was a constant source of difficulty to deeply challenge yourself and your peers during each seminar in order to isolate particular relationships within the complex processes of cognition. All of this in the pursuit, of course, of knowledge. It was one of the most creatively and analytically intensive classes I’ve ever been in. Brevity, ingenuity, and logicality are the cornerstones of this course and the discipline in general. An excellent learning experience.

some of these were edited to be more rigorous after i had printed them, so i’m not sure how they are in their current state.