From the ArcaMax Publishing, Health & Fitness Newsletter:
http://www.arcamax.com/news/healthtips/s-362193-889729
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.