Unfixed Resources: Perceived Costs, Consumption, and the Accessible Account Effect

2007/12/01 by Carey K. Morewedge, Leif Holtzman, Nicholas Epley · 2 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Psychology · #Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis #Economic and Environmental Valuation #Housing Market and Economics #Consumption (sociology) #Economics #Environmental economics #Business #Marketing #Psychology #Sociology #Social science

paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/518540

openalex publication_date 2007/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

Consumption depletes one's available resources, but consumers may be unaware of the total resources available for consumption and, therefore, be influenced by the temporary accessibility of resource accounts. Consistent with this possibility, consumers in four experiments perceived a unit of consumption to be smaller and consequently consumed more, when large resource accounts of money, calories, or time (e.g., the money in their savings account) were made temporarily accessible compared with when small resource accounts were made temporarily accessible (e.g., the money in their wallet). Manipulating the cognitive accessibility of resources available for consumption influences both subjective judgment and behavior.

Citations

• Malleable Mental Accounting: The Effect of Flexibility on the Justification of Attractive Spending and Consumption Decisions
• Waiting Time and Decision Making: Is Time like Money?
• The Red and the Black: Mental Accounting of Savings and Debt
• Spending Time versus Spending Money
• Mental Accounting and Consumer Choice
• Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk
• The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations.

Cited by

• Do debit cards increase household spending? Evidence from a semiparametric causal analysis of a survey
• Mental accounting [wikipedia]

Related

• An integrative theory of resource discrepancies
• The Effect of Partitions on Controlling Consumption
• A Self‐Regulatory Model of Resource Scarcity
• The Red and the Black: Mental Accounting of Savings and Debt
• The Relative Importance of Time and Money for Consumer Behavior and Prosperity