No texto a seguir, escrito para o nível B2, vamos ver alguns exemplos de economia comportamental e o seu impacto na nossa vida.
Listening
Reading
A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total the bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?
Behavioral economics shows us how easy it is to get tricked by our own minds. For instance, in the bat and ball problem, many people quickly say the ball costs 10 cents if together with the bat they cost $1.10, and the bat is $1.00 more expensive. However, the correct answer is 5 cents for the ball. This mistake points to our tendency to rely on quick, intuitive thinking.
Consider two more examples:
1. Widget-making machines: If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? The intuitive guess might be more time, but the answer is still 5 minutes. This shows how we might overcomplicate things in our heads.
2. Lily pad growth: If a patch of lily pads doubles in size each day and takes 48 days to cover a lake, how long to cover half the lake? Many might start calculating from day one, but the answer is 47 days. It illustrates our struggle with exponential growth perception.
Lastly, the decoy effect, demonstrated by the popcorn experiment, reveals how adding options (like a medium popcorn for $6.50 when a small costs $3 and a large $7) can skew our original preferences, often making us choose an option we didn't initially consider, as you can watch in the video below.
These examples urge us to question our initial instincts and apply more thoughtful analysis to our decisions.
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