Study: Fear of Losing Drives Auction Prices

Psychology researchers have suggested fear of losing drives up auction prices, not more “rational” economic principles. So the next time you sense you’re overbidding on eBay, you probably are, not due to any theoretical “price the market will bear,” but instead due to some competitive wiring in your brain that says win at all costs.

It’s likely a survival mechanism—most brain quirks are—remaining intact long after we removed ourselves from the harsh, bloody realities of the natural world and replaced them with theoretic constructs.*

Scientists discover why we overbid for old junk on eBay,” delivers this harrowing tidbit, coming in the wake of the apparent collapse of Nixonian economics, which the proposed fear-based federal bailout would seek to artificially perpetuate:

The results, the authors say, were not predicted by current economic theory. Similar neuroscience studies, they added, may eventually help shape new advances in economic theory.  

So, keep that in mind the next time you bid at an auction, online or off: losing may not be as painful as the potential emptiness in your wallet. 


_{*I know that sounds a bit obtuse, but in light of certain recent economic crises, where economists who believed theoretically-existent people would buy a bunch of houses with theoretically existent (faith-based) currency are now requesting reasonable people who don’t like existing in theoretical constructions to print money and create credit so these economists’ greed-based faiths can be realized and so all is not lost—does cat food sound appetizing to you? they ask—the fear of losing idea seems especially relevant.}