Health & Fitness - Why is it so hard to get rid of 'stuff'?

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Why is it so hard to get rid of 'stuff'?

STANFORD, Calif. (UPI) -- A team of U.S. researchers said they used brain scan imaging to determine why is seems so hard for some people to part with their possessions.

Study author Dr. Brian Knutson of Stanford University said people tend to prefer the items they own when compared to similar items that they do not own -- known as the "endowment effect." However, the endowment effect violates rational choice theory which states that ownership should not influence preferences.

Knutson and colleagues used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brains of subjects while they engaged in tasks designed to elicit the endowment effect. Subjects were asked to buy certain products, sell other products given to them before the experiment and choose between yet other products and cash.

The study, published in the the journal Neuron, found the results indicate that the endowment effect is not promoted by an enhanced attraction to possessions but that ownership increases value by enhancing the salience of the possible loss of preferred products.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International

This news arrived on: 06/12/2008

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