Over the last couple of decades, a new field of economics, behavioral economics, has emerged to explain why people so often act in ways that are contrary to their own interests. They overeat, smoke, forget to take their medicine and don’t save enough for retirement, saying all the while that they wish they could change. Figuring out how to turn these wishes into action could put a dent in some big social problems.
9 comments:
I hate the new-age restuarants where they serve you food on a huge plate which makes the serving in the middle look really small. It makes me feel that I am not getting enough food for my money, and makes me hungrier and unhappy.
This is something that i have heard about before. My mom actually uses small plates so that you eat everything on your plate without eating a lot. Its not something that you realize that you are doing until it is pointed out to you. Once you realize that eating is very psychological you can try to have self control and restrict the amount of food you eat.
I always laugh when my mom says, candy bars used to be 3 times the size they are today. But this is something the proves my moms therroy to be correct. Out in good old East Hampton this is the case for most places u eat, large money for little means. It is funny how this man was able to understand the linkage between act. being hungry or jsut eating because the plate was reall big.
So basically behavioral economics is the excuse used whe ntheory doesnt apply in practice. Any way I guess that it is by studying this that we could further understand and predict markets and outcomes that depend on people making choices.
I think this is really interesting I never thought of this idea before. I will have to eat food on bigger plates from now on. The whole illusion idea seems really powerful so I could see how it plays into economics.
i think as americans we are use to those huge survings at grandma's house as she tells us to go get seconds and eat more making biger servings so that when we go to restuarants that give us those tiny servings on big white plates we feel like we are being jipped so we buy the bigger popcorn because it seems like a better value yea we eat more out of it but how often is it finished when you could have gotten a smaller cheeper one that you wouldn't finish and have eaten less i do think bigger servings are more appealing because we feel like we have a better value even though that may not always be the case
it makes perfect sense, since people tend to view things based on comparison. Granted if someone displays a plate of eggs and toast on a average and/or small plate then you will understandably see everything as Proportionate, yet if you are shown the same amoutn of eggs and toast on a much larger plate then you will automatically assume that it is a smaller quantity of food. so when it comes down to it the problem presented is almost rooted in logic as humanity as a whole shares similar traits.
I do believe that eating from bigger plates would cause people to get more food. Most people want to be full and satisfied after eating and if they have a big plate with little food they tend to think that there is not going to be enough food for them to be full. Whereas if they was eating from a little plate with the little portion of food they would be satisfied because the plate would be full making them think that they had enough. The mind does play tricks on you.
In present times, portions are out of control. A healthy portion of meat is supposed to be about the size of a deck of cards. I know, however, that when my dad makes a steak he eats more than a deck of cards worth. Just like an optical illusion, this illustration shows how the mind and brain function to make one believe that they are eating more when surronded by littler foods, and more when surronded by bigger.
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