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Published online 11 June 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.886
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Why it hurts to sell your stuff
Brain-imaging study proves that it's hard to part with the things we own.
Have you ever felt your heart wrench when selling your beaten-up old car, or offered up a formerly prized possession to the voracious hordes on eBay with a hint of sadness?
If so, you have experienced the 'endowment effect' – in which people value a something more once they possess it. Exactly why this happens is not known.
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i'll keep this comment short; there are two driving forces in life: fear of loss and desire for gain.
in other words: buy low, sell high. could this be an innate entrepreunerial spirit?
Possession of objects is relatively uncommon in the rest of the animal kingdom, so far as I can think at least. I wonder whether this possessive behaviour has been selected for, or if it's an artefact of some previously existing disposition? Food for thought =) It keeps me sated.
freedom's just another word for nothing left to loose
freedom's just another word for nothing left to loose
freedom's just another word for nothing left to loose
Often people find it difficult to part with their belongings because they have unresolved issues in their lives.
Dean Harliwich: It would be interesting to observe which areas of the brain are involved in other species. This could perhaps be done by MRI scanning of primates as food is taken away form them, though such an experiment could be difficult to perform inside a scanner. Other examples of possession by animals (Eg. of buried food stores or territory) could be harder to study as it occurs over a wide physical area.
it is interesting what neuroscience unveils about our neuronal firings, one of which - as far as I understood here - to be attached to our possessings and it is expected so for the whole animal kingdom. However, what about the choice of detaching from one's very own belongings, the choice of giving from the very own need? I wonder if the origin of such decisions will also be computable by science and stereotyped to 'our' grandfather chimp!!