IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joepsy/v32y2011i3p434-439.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On fatalistic long-term health behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Macé, Serge
  • Le Lec, Fabrice

Abstract

Many adults have an overly pessimistic view of old age because they fail to correctly predict their ability to hedonically adapt to old-age health related problems. A standard utility model where the marginal utility of health is higher at a lower level of health predicts that this overly pessimist view raises the incentive for healthy behavior. But this is at odds with empirical research that indicates that people with more negative aging stereotypes tend to adopt less healthy practices, transforming this negative view into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The aim of this note is to show that this fatalistic behavior can be explained through prospect theory by modelling this overly pessimistic view of old age as a failure to predict the change in the reference point due to hedonic adaptation. Given the diminishing sensitivity in the loss domain, people undervalue the future marginal value of health investment and may therefore underinvest in health as long as loss aversion is not too strong.

Suggested Citation

  • Macé, Serge & Le Lec, Fabrice, 2011. "On fatalistic long-term health behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 434-439, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:32:y:2011:i:3:p:434-439
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487011000316
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2008. "Is well-being U-shaped over the life cycle?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1733-1749, April.
    2. Becca R. Levy & Martin D. Slade & Stanislav V. Kasl, 2002. "Longitudinal Benefit of Positive Self-Perceptions of Aging on Functional Health," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 57(5), pages 409-417.
    3. Richard H. Thaler, 2008. "Mental Accounting and Consumer Choice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(1), pages 15-25, 01-02.
    4. Albrecht, Gary L. & Devlieger, Patrick J., 1999. "The disability paradox: high quality of life against all odds," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 48(8), pages 977-988, April.
    5. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Thaler, Richard, 1980. "Toward a positive theory of consumer choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 39-60, March.
    7. repec:cup:judgdm:v:1:y:2006:i::p:146-152 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Heather Lacey & Dylan Smith & Peter Ubel, 2006. "Hope I Die before I Get Old: Mispredicting Happiness Across the Adult Lifespan," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 167-182, June.
    9. Wu, Stephen, 2001. "Adapting to heart conditions: a test of the hedonic treadmill," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 495-507, July.
    10. Oswald, Andrew J. & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2008. "Does happiness adapt? A longitudinal study of disability with implications for economists and judges," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1061-1077, June.
    11. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    12. Emma Walsh & Peter Ayton, 2009. "What Would It Be Like for Me and for You? Judged Impact of Chronic Health Conditions on Happiness," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 29(1), pages 15-22, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cinzia Di Novi & Rowena Jacobs & Matteo Migheli, 2013. "The quality of life of female informal caregivers: from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean Sea," Working Papers 084cherp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    2. Octave Jokung & Serge Macé, 2013. "Long-term health investment when people underestimate their adaptation to old age-related health problems," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 14(6), pages 1003-1013, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Octave Jokung & Serge Macé, 2013. "Long-term health investment when people underestimate their adaptation to old age-related health problems," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 14(6), pages 1003-1013, December.
    2. Schünemann, Johannes & Strulik, Holger & Trimborn, Timo, 2017. "Going from bad to worse: Adaptation to poor health health spending, longevity, and the value of life," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 130-146.
    3. Das, Debabrata & Dutta, Pankaj, 2022. "Product return management through promotional offers: The role of consumers’ loss aversion," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    4. Di Tella, Rafael & Haisken-De New, John & MacCulloch, Robert, 2010. "Happiness adaptation to income and to status in an individual panel," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 834-852, December.
    5. Lahav, Yaron & Benzion, Uri, 2022. "What happens to investment choices when interest rates change? An experimental study," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 471-481.
    6. Wang, Huijun & Yan, Jinghua & Yu, Jianfeng, 2017. "Reference-dependent preferences and the risk–return trade-off," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 395-414.
    7. Carole Bonnet & Sandrine Juin & Anne Laferrère, 2019. "Private Financing of Long‑Term Care: Income, Savings and Reverse Mortgages," Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE), issue 507-508, pages 5-24.
    8. Gutiérrez-Nieto, Begoña & Ortiz, Cristina & Vicente, Luis, 2023. "A bibliometric analysis of the disposition effect: Origins and future research avenues," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    9. Isler, Ozan & Yilmaz, Onurcan & Dulleck, Uwe, 2023. "Scarcity improves economic valuations when cognitively salient," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 362-371.
    10. Levin, Irwin P. & Schneider, Sandra L. & Gaeth, Gary J., 1998. "All Frames Are Not Created Equal: A Typology and Critical Analysis of Framing Effects," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 149-188, November.
    11. Andrew E. Clark & Paul Frijters & Michael A. Shields, 2006. "Income and happiness: Evidence, explanations and economic implications," PSE Working Papers halshs-00590436, HAL.
    12. Ebert, Sebastian & Hilpert, Christian, 2019. "Skewness preference and the popularity of technical analysis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    13. Weber, Martin & Welfens, Frank, 2007. "The Repurchase Behavior of Individual Investors: An Experimental Investigation," Sonderforschungsbereich 504 Publications 07-44, Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Universität Mannheim;Sonderforschungsbereich 504, University of Mannheim.
    14. Hsu, Yuan-Lin & Chow, Edward H., 2013. "The house money effect on investment risk taking: Evidence from Taiwan," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 1102-1115.
    15. Nagengast, Liane & Evanschitzky, Heiner & Blut, Markus & Rudolph, Thomas, 2014. "New Insights in the Moderating Effect of Switching Costs on the Satisfaction–Repurchase Behavior Link," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 90(3), pages 408-427.
    16. Shi, Haijiao & Chen, Rong & Xu, Xiaobing, 2021. "How reward uncertainty influences subsequent donations: The role of mental accounting," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 383-391.
    17. Mehmet Karacuka & Asad Zaman, 2012. "The empirical evidence against neoclassical utility theory: a review of the literature," International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 3(4), pages 366-414.
    18. Chu, Hsunchi & Liao, Shuling, 2010. "Buying while expecting to sell: The economic psychology of online resale," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(9-10), pages 1073-1078, September.
    19. Eduard Marinov, 2017. "The 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 117-159.
    20. Breuer, Wolfgang & Hauten, Guido & Kreuz, Claudia, 2009. "Financial instruments with sports betting components: Marketing gimmick or a domain for behavioral finance?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(12), pages 2241-2252, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:32:y:2011:i:3:p:434-439. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joep .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.