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Full-Text Articles in Cognitive Psychology
Essays On Mental Accounting And Consumers' Decision Making, Ali Besharat
Essays On Mental Accounting And Consumers' Decision Making, Ali Besharat
USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation is structured in the form of two empirical essays, each investigating one type of irrational decision caused by mental accounting. The first essay, titled "Managing the Cost of Multiple Debt Accounts: A Behavioral Perspective", explores why many people pay off credit cards' with the lowest rate first when rationally speaking they should repay the debt with the highest rate most quickly. This essay suggests that irrationality emerges when people seek to close `mental accounts' associated with their credit cards and reduce the total number of outstanding loans rather than decrease the amount of total debt among all credit …