Estava lendo uma newsletter que assino, Ask Ariely, do pesquisador em psicologia e economia comportamental Dan Ariely. Nessa newsletter ele responde dúvidas das pessoas sobre a aplicação dessa área comportamental em problemas do dia-a-dia.
Lendo a última newsletter lembrei do que o Bastter sempre fala para não dar nome ao dinheiro.
O Dan Ariely falou sobre o mesmo assunto e como resolver o problema. Nada que o Bastter já não tenha falado mil vezes, mas é legal ver como isso tem embasamento científico. Segue a pergunta/resposta:
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PERGUNTA:
Dear Dan,
I’ve wanted to buy a new iPhone for a while, and I’ve been holding off so that I can save for a vacation with my wife. But recently, I got some extra money as an end-of-the-year gift from my job. I’m tempted to use this money for my vacation and the money I have been saving in the bank toward a new phone. Why am I thinking differently about spending the gift money versus what’s in my savings account?
—Ron
RESPOSTA:
An essential feature of money is that it’s fungible: this means that each dollar is in principle worth the same. Yet, in reality, our minds create separate “accounts” for different sources of income and expenses, and we spend money based on what we think is reasonable for each account. Behavioral economists call this “mental accounting.” When you got some extra end-of-year money, it felt like this money belonged to a different account from our standard savings.
This is clearly not an ideal way to think about spending. I would put the year-end money in your saving account for a month or two, let the money “get used” to its new mental account (more accurately to let you get used to it), and only then decide what to do with it. My guess is that in two months you will feel less inclined to splurge on the phone.
