2008/03/21 by Scott Rick, Cynthia Cryder, George Loewenstein · 3 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Decision Sciences · Psychology · #Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification #Consumer Retail Behavior Studies #Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics #Psychology #Contrast (vision) #Economics #Marketing #Cognitive psychology #Business #Computer science #Artificial intelligence
paper · doi:10.1086/523285
openalex publication_date 2008/03/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Consumers often behave differently than they would ideally like to behave. We propose that an anticipatory pain of paying drives “tightwads” to spend less than they would ideally like to spend. “Spendthrifts,” by contrast, experience too little pain of paying and typically spend more than they would ideally like to spend. This article introduces and validates the “spendthrift-tightwad” scale, a measure of individual differences in the pain of paying. Spending differences between tightwads and spendthrifts are greatest in situations that amplify the pain of paying and smallest in situations that diminish the pain of paying.