Praying Colonel
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2004
When I saw this Lifehacker article I thought of DDP and the discussions of whether it's worth it. The article explains why people generally enjoy something more if they pay for it ahead of time. From the article:
The flip side of coupling is that we’re also less likely to enjoy our purchase when we’re closely linked to it. It’s more painful. The awareness of dropping $150 cash for a hotel can take away from the fun of traveling, for example. So Hershfield offers a solution:
If you want to derive more enjoyment out of what you consume (think about going on vacation but being stressed about how much various things cost) then pay for the experience in advance. Doing so decouples the pain of paying from the consumption of the experience. Prelec and Loewenstein, in fact, mention a concept known as prospective accounting, in which consuming something that has already been paid for can be enjoyed as if it was free. This is akin to prepaying for a hotel room, and then having the pleasant feeling that the room was free upon receipt of the zero-balance bill.