Cryder, C.E., Lerner, J.S., Gross, J.J., & Dahl, R.E. (2008). Misery is not
Miserly: Sad and Self - Focused Individuals Spend More. Psychological
Science, 19, 6, 525 - 30.
Prelec, D., & Simester, D. (2001). Always Leave Home Without It. A
Further Investigation of the Credit-Card Effect on Willingness to Pay.
Marketing Letters, 12, 1, 5 - 12.
Kirsten Allanson, Lee Bishop, & Siôn Pickering
1


Article paper - Want to spend less?...
Research paper 1 - Misery is not Miserly…
 Aims and Justifications
 Method and Results
 Discussion

Research paper 2 - Always Leave Home Without It…





Aims and Justifications
Method and Results of Study 1
Method and Results of Study 2
General Discussion
Conclusion
2

Article from BPS research digest blog

Overview
 When handing over money, the insula becomes active.
 Not so when paying with card because there is no physical loss
 Individuals who feel sad spend more
http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/search?q=begley
3
 Publication
◦Psychological Science
 Author
Cryder, C.E., Lerner, J.S., Gross, J.J., & Dahl, R.E. (2008). Misery is not miserly – sad and selffocused individuals spend more. Psychological Science, 19(6) 525-30.
4

Aims & justification
◦ 1– Is MINM moderated by self
focus?
◦ 2 – is MINM mediated by self
focus?
◦ 3 – Generalisability of MINM
5

Method
◦ 33 participants, volunteer sample
◦ Independent design
◦ Randomly allocated into ‘sad condition’ and ‘neutral condition’.
◦ Self–focusing essay
◦ Buying task
◦ Manipulation check & debriefing
6

Results
T-tests show that sad condition
participants spent more than
neutral condition participants.
There was a larger effect in high
self-focus group against low
self-focus group.
7

Discussion
The MINM effect only occurs when self-focus is high
Relationship between sadness and spending mediated &
moderated by self-focus
Other possible interpretations of the data:
- mood repair
- reduced self value
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• Relevance
- James (1890)
- Contradictory evidence from Capra, Lanier & Meer (2010) – positive
mood led to overbidding during an auction task
• Future research
- Test sadness and self-focused when an object is unobtainable
- Models in clinical depression, link to compulsive buying (Black et al 1998)
Black, D.W., Repertinger, S., Gaffney, G.R. & Gabel, J. (1998). Family History and Psychiatric Comorbidity in Person
with Compulsive Buying: Preliminary Findings. American Journal of Psychiatry, 155:960-963.
Capra, C.M., Lanier, K.F. & Meer, S. (2010). The effects of induced mood on bidding in random nth price auctions.
Journal of Economic Behaviour & Organisation, 75:223-234
9

Publication
◦ Marketing Letters

Authors
◦ Drazen Prelec
◦ Duncan Simester
10

Aims & Justification
◦ To see whether people were more willing to pay more when
using a credit card (credit card premium).
◦ Investigate generalisability of Feinberg (1986)’s results.
◦ Investigate influence of knowing the market price and credit card
stimuli.
Feinberg, R. A., (1986). Credit Cards as Spending Facilitating Stimuli: A Conditioning Interpretation.
Journal of Consumer Research ,12, 384 - 356.
11

Specific Aim
 Investigate Willingness-to-Pay.

Methods
 A volunteer sample are randomly allocated to cash or card
condition
 Second-price sealed-bid auction for a selection of goods
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Results
70
The credit card condition wrote
down significantly higher values for
all three prizes than the cash
condition.
60
Cash mean
50
40
Buying
Price 30
(£) 20
Credit Card
mean
10
0
Celtics
Red Sox
Prizes
Banners
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
Specific Aims
 Investigate necessary conditions to support credit card premiums.
 Investigate whether consumers adjusting valuations from
anchoring points is a valid explanation.

Method
 Participants selected by an opportunity sample where randomly
assigned to one of four groups, credit card / cash condition and
letters & digits / type of card
 Invited to buy a dinner certificate
 Becker De-Groot ‘incentive –compatible’ procedure
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
Results
90
80
Conflicting findings with study one.
70
60
Willingness to pay higher in
congruent conditions than in
incongruent conditions.
Cash mean
50
Buying
Price 40
(£) 30
Credit card
mean
20
Main effects of payment method
and identification method not
significant.
10
0
Non-exposure
Exposure
Any
4 Characters Credit
Card Digits
Identification Method
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
General discussion
 Authors suggest that there is no evidence that exposure to credit
card logo increases willingness-to-pay
 Authors suggest that congruence is more important
 Authors suggest liquidity constraints (access to cash) does not
explain the credit card premium.
 Authors suggest that customers adjust their valuations from
different anchoring points in the cash/credit card conditions.
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
Relevance
 Has been looked at since 1970’s
 Used real money transactions therefore more generalisable
 High value goods as usually use credit card for this purpose
 Current issue - economic crisis

Further Research
 Shimp and Moody (2000)
 Lie et al. (2010)
Lie, C., Hunt, M., Peters, H.L., Veliu, B., & Harper, D. (2010). The “Negative” Credit Card Effect: Cr edit Cards
As Spending - Limiting Stimuli In New Zealand. The Psychological Record, 60, 399 – 412
Shimp, T. A., & Moody, M.P., (2000). In Search of a Theoretical Explanation for the Credit Card Effect. Journal
of Business Research, 48, 17 – 23.
17
Misery is not Miserly…


Overall we consider this a
good study with good
relevance, but there was a
methodological flaw with the
self-focused essay.
Does have clinical implications
which are useful for real world
applications.
Always Leave Home Without
It…

In our opinion this paper is
overcomplicated and it
contradicts itself between the
first and second experiment.

However does introduce a
new methodology and so does
contribute to future research.
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Black, D.W., Repertinger, S., Gaffney, G.R. & Gabel, J. (1998). Family History and Psychiatric
Comorbidity in Person with Compulsive Buying: Preliminary Findings. American
Journal of Psychiatry, 155:960-963.
Becker, M. G., DeGroot M.H., & Marschak, J. (1964). Measuring Utility by a Single-response
Sequential Method. Behavioural Science, 9, 226 - 232.
Capra, C.M., Lanier, K.F. & Meer, S. (2010). The effects of induced mood on bidding in
random nth
price auctions. Journal of Economic Behaviour & Organisation,
75:223-234
Clark, M.S., & Isen, A.M. (1982). Towards understanding the relationship between feeling
states and social behavior. In
A.H. Hastorf & A.M. Isen (Eds.), Cognitive social
psychology .73 - 108. Amsterdam: Elsevier/North-Holland.
Cryder, C.E., Lerner, J.S., Gross, J.J., & Dahl, R.E. (2008). Misery is not miserly: sad and selffocused individuals spend more. Psychological Science, 19, 6, 525 - 30.
Feinberg, R. A., (1986). Credit Cards as Spending Facilitating Stimuli: A Conditioning
Journal ofConsumer Research ,12, 384 - 356.
Interpretation.
19
Garg, N., & Lerner, J. (2006). Emotion effects on compensatory consumption. Unpublished
manuscript, The University of Mississippi, Oxford.
James, W. (1890). Principles of psychology. New York: Holt.
Lie, C., Hunt, M., Peters, H.L., Veliu, B., & Harper, D. (2010). The “Negative” Credit Card Effect:
Credit Cards As Spending - Limiting Stimuli In New Zealand. The Psychological Record,
60, 399 – 412.
Lynn, M. (2006b). Tipping in restaurants and around the globe: An interdisciplinary review.
In M.Altman (Ed.), Handbook of contemporary behavioural economics: Foundations
and developments, 626 - 643. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Prelec, D., & Simester, D. (2001). Always Leave Home Without It. A Further Investigation of the
Credit-Card Effect on Willingness to Pay. Marketing Letters, 12, 1, 5 - 12.
Shimp, T. A., & Moody, M.P., (2000). In Search of a Theoretical Explanation for the Credit Card
Effect. Journal of Business Research, 48, 17 – 23.
20