Title:	The Manipulation of Choice
Authors:	Mark D. White
Keywords:	Economics Psychological aspects
Issue Date:	2013
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Description:	Most economists understand choice to be a matter of picking the best option available to a person, such as filling your shopping cart with great bargains or selecting an automobile based on getting the best options for a good price. Sounds reasonable, right? Sure, but once we tease out the meanings of “best” and “available”—as well as other terms that economists use when they discuss choice, such as “preferences” and “well-being”—we see that the standard economic model of choice is anything but reasonable. When you get down to it, it doesn’t involve any actual choosing or deciding: you see, and you want, so you get. This might be fine to describe your dog’s “choices,” but not yours or mine—we deserve a better model, and economists need one. This chapter highlights three of the most serious problems with standard economic models of choice. First, they have far too narrow an idea of what we are choosing from. We don’t merely choose goods and services based on what they can do for us or how happy they make us. For instance, many people buy fair-trade coffee or environmentally safe laundry detergent, despite the higher price, because they believe it’s right to do so. In general, we make choices based on principles, ideals, and values as well as desires and preferences, all of which make up our interests. Second, our decision-making processes are much more elaborate than economists think. We don’t just choose the shiniest car we can afford; we make judgments based on the wide range of considerations identified above, weighing some factors more heavily than others, or considering some before we even think about others. Finally, we have to follow through with our choices, using resolve or willpower, with or without external help (friends, support groups, and so forth). We can choose to make New Year’s resolutions, but we all know how difficult it is to maintain them (assuming we even start them)!
URI:	http://10.6.20.12:80/handle/123456789/52571
ISBN:	978-1-137-31357-7
Appears in Collections:	Population Studies

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