$5 of $125 Is Still $5: The Link Between Dispositional Greed and Thinking Styles

摘要

Classic economic theories state that economic choices are based on rational thinking and an absolute thinking style (Stigler, 1987). However, research in psychology showed that information processing responds to changes in stimuli in a relative style (Fetherstonhaugh et al., 1997). Limited attention has been given to information showing that neither relative nor absolute thinking is generalizable across the population. Several basic experiments (e.g. Tversky and Kahneman, 1981) indicating relative thinking actually found that 30%-60% of the population show an absolute thinking style. As studies have shown that thinking style affects a variety of consumer decisions, individual differences in numerical information processing is hugely important for academics and management practitioners. We examine dispositional greed, a personality trait that entails an insatiable, self-centered desire for more resources (Krekels and Pande-laere, 2015), to investigate stable individual differences in thinking style. We believe that their insatiability might drive greedy people to focus on absolute changes.