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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Dark Side Of Variety: An Economic Model Of Choice Overload, Teeger Li Blasheck, Jawwad Noor Aug 2021

The Dark Side Of Variety: An Economic Model Of Choice Overload, Teeger Li Blasheck, Jawwad Noor

The Yale Undergraduate Research Journal

Choice Overload is a phenomenon well studied in psychology. It goes against the classical ³more is better´ dogma and describes the behavior of an agent when presented with too many options, in which instance an agent may either experience a decrease in satisfaction or end up deferring the choice all together. The standard Utility Maximization model of economics, however, largely follows the classical dogma and is unable to accommodate the behaviors of Choice Overload. This paper seeks to offer two possible economic models for Choice Overload based on the two mechanisms put forward by the psychological literature: search cost and …


Obstacles To Dieting Behavior, Shahram Heshmat Jul 2021

Obstacles To Dieting Behavior, Shahram Heshmat

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Despite documented short term success, dieting has a very low success rates, most dieters regain their weight back within 3-5 years. The question is why do people fail to stick to their goal for eating a healthy diet in order to lose weight? One possible answer is that people have self-control problems in the form of a present-biased preference. From a prior perspective, they want to behave relatively patiently, but as the moment of action approaches, they want to behave relatively impatiently. The essay presents some insights from behavioral economics to explain why people fail to maintain healthy behavior.