The Ontogeny of the Endowment Effect

认知偏见会影响有效的决策。这些不合理的策略导致了从大规模经济系统（如医疗保健行业）到个人选择（如挑选不健康的零食）的一切效率低下。这项研究调查了一种特殊的偏见，即禀赋效应（Endowment Effect， EE），在这种偏见中，个人倾向于要求更高的价格来出售自己拥有的物品，而不是支付更高的价格来购买它。例如，人们在抽奖券中赢得的四强篮球门票要求比之前一段时间的门票支付更多的钱（例如，出售2400美元对购买160美元；Carmon & Ariely, 2000）。这是正确的，即使在某些情况下，对象没有积累额外的价值，甚至情感价值，因为它是获得的。情感表达很重要，因为对财产的高估会导致交易效率降低；人们对他们目前拥有的东西要求太多。对于孩子来说，这种偏见可能会使涉及财产的社会互动复杂化，比如与兄弟姐妹和同龄人分享。我们将通过测试儿童和成人如何做决定来调查情感表达的出现和发展。我们的第一个目标是记录这些年龄组之间情感表达的差异。我们的测试程序将产生与非人类灵长类动物情感表达的现有数据相当的结果。这意味着我们将了解情感表达是如何在人类中发展的，以及它是如何在灵长类动物中进化的。这种综合方法将有助于衡量有偏见的决策在多大程度上是经验和文化的结果。我们的第二个目标是调查与占有相关的不同特征如何影响情感表达。特别是，我们将测试物理占有与“合法”占有的重要性（例如，拥有一个物体与被告知你将得到一个物体），以及情感表达在多大程度上取决于对实际物体的占有（与代表该物体的照片或符号相比）。最后，我们的研究将产生两个更广泛的影响。首先，这些结果将解决决策偏差的发展，从而有助于为如何最大限度地减少错误决策的影响的辩论提供信息。此外，我们将让各级学生参与科学过程，包括在学术场所以及与家长和社区其他成员分享这些结果。

Cognitive biases cloud effective decision-making. These irrational strategies lead to inefficiencies in everything from large-scale economic systems (such as the health-care industry) to personal choices (such as picking unhealthy snack foods). This research investigates one specific bias, the Endowment Effect (EE), in which individuals tend to ask for more to sell an item in their possession than they would pay to buy it. For instance, people demanded more money to part with a Final Four basketball ticket won in a raffle than they offered to pay for such a ticket some time earlier (e.g., $2400 to sell vs $160 to buy; Carmon & Ariely, 2000). This is true even in cases where the object has accrued no additional value, even sentimental value, since it was acquired. The EE is important because over-valuing possessions leads to less efficient transactions; people demand too much in exchange for what they currently have. For children, this bias may complicate social interactions that involve possessions, such as sharing with siblings and peers.We will investigate the emergence and development of the EE by testing how children and adults make decisions. Our first goal is to document any differences in the EE across these age groups. Our testing procedures will produce results that are comparable to existing data on the EE in non-human primates. This means that we will understand both how the EE develops in humans and how it evolved across the primates. This combined approach will help measure the degree to which biased decision-making is a result of experience and culture. Our second goal is to investigate how different features related to possession influence the EE. In particular, we will test the importance of physical versus "legal" possession (e.g., having an object vs. being told that you will receive an object) and the degree to which the EE is determined by possession of the actual object (as compared to a photo of or symbol representing the object). Finally, our research will have two broader impacts. First, these results will address the development of decision-making biases and thus help to inform the debate about how to best minimize the impacts of faulty decision-making. Additionally, we will engage students at all levels in the scientific process, including sharing these results in academic venues as well as with parents and other members of the community.