One of the attractions of behavioural economics is how easy it is to identify with BE concepts and relate them to our day-to-day experience.
BE has a simple, 'real' quality to it - quite the opposite of the many 'black box' approaches found in market research. But BE is often at work under the radar. If we think about it, we can identify biases in our behaviour, or how we use rules of thumb to help us make decisions, but much of the time these influences aren't apparent... or are they? BE is actually deeply ingrained in our culture and language, and BE concepts underpin many of the common idioms that we hear every day! Here are a few examples:
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" describes the 'endowment effect' whereby people place a higher value on objects they own than on objects that they do not.
"Crying over spilt milk" illustrates 'loss aversion' or the tendency to dislike loss more than gain.
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and "being fixed in your ways"
These both illustrate the 'status quo bias', i.e. that people prefer things to remain the same.
"In the heat of the moment" describes how we do one thing in a low-stimulus (reflective) context, but in a high-stimulus (tempting) context, we act differently...
"Rule of thumb" is a simple way of describing 'heuristics' or the shortcuts used in decision making.
"You can't take it with you" is an example of 'the power of now' or the tendency to focus on today rather than think about what tomorrow might bring.
"Doing the right thing" describes the 'fairness bias' or that most people are instinctively motivated to do the right thing...
"Out of sight, out of mind" describes the availability bias, whereby we are influenced by how easily we can bring something to mind.
"Variety is the spice of life" describes 'diversification bias' - the more experiences you try, the more exciting life can be!
We would love to hear of other examples of BE idioms. Let us know...
