Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Using An Evolutionary Approach To Improve Predictive Ability In Social Sciences: Property, The Endowment Effect, And Law, Owen D. Jones, Sarah F. Brosnan
Using An Evolutionary Approach To Improve Predictive Ability In Social Sciences: Property, The Endowment Effect, And Law, Owen D. Jones, Sarah F. Brosnan
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
From the perspective of other disciplines, evolutionary approaches more often provide explanation and coherence than they help to solve discrete problems. We believe that more examples of the latter sort will help both with disciplinary synthesis and with the advance of knowledge. Here we describe a 20-year arc of research to demonstrate the problem-solving utility of an evolutionary perspective by focusing, as a case study, on a particular cognitive bias – the endowment effect – that has implications for law. Legal systems often assume that humans make decisions that are substantively rational, consistent, and aimed at maximizing their own wellbeing. …
Predicting Variation In Endowment Effect Magnitudes, Owen D. Jones, C. Jaeger, S. Brosnan, D. Levin
Predicting Variation In Endowment Effect Magnitudes, Owen D. Jones, C. Jaeger, S. Brosnan, D. Levin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Hundreds of studies demonstrate human cognitive biases that are both inconsistent with “rational” decisionmaking and puzzlingly patterned. One such bias, the “endowment effect” (also known as “reluctance to trade”), occurs when people instantly value an item they have just acquired at a much higher price than the maximum they would have paid to acquire it. This bias impedes a vast range of real-world transactions, making it important to understand. Prior studies have documented items that do or do not generate endowment effects, and have noted that the effects vary in magnitude. But none has predicted any of the substantial between-item …