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Making good predictions is a critical feature of decision making in situations such as investing and predicting the spread of diseases. Past literature indicates that people use recent and longer-term trends while making predictions. Nonetheless, less is known about how these factors affect how well people make predictions and the timing of their predictions. Further, identifying factors underlying predictive judgments could be an important behavioral factor in manic-depression, anxiety, substance use, age effects, and understanding how income inequality affects decision making. To understand how people make predictive judgments, we conducted two experiments. In Experiment 1, we used an investment task where participants had to predict the future price of a stock based on an exponential trend of information. We found that participants generally had lower earnings with steeper exponential trends (e.g. slower starting) and delayed their decisions to sell bad stocks with steeper trends. We extended these results in Experiment 2 with an updated task with exponential and inverse exponential trends. Overall, our results suggested that people delayed longer to make their prediction with slower starting exponential trends compared to faster starting inverse exponential trends and delayed their predictions longer with more linear trends compared to more trend trends. When deciding how long to explore, participants incorporated both the average trend and recent trend, though they shifted their responses depending on the overall functional form. These choices were ultimately biased to be optimistic or pessimistic based on whether the trend started fast or slow, respectively. Additionally, we found that participants who self-reported taking more gambling risk and depressive symptoms had a greater tendency to stay with faster starting trends and to leave with slower starting trends, suggesting they were even more optimistic given initially fast starting trends. Results pointing to an optimism bias based on the trend in information available to the participant could suggest that an aspect of sunk-cost fallacy is due to errors in predicting the likelihood of future success based on past information. Our findings help understand the dynamics of how people make predictive judgments over time and could inform future research into the mechanisms people use for prospective decision making. Additionally, future research and potential interventions could account for biases in how people perceive past trends to minimize harmful effects of sunk-cost fallacy when making predictions. / Psychology

Denna studie ämnar att undersöka vad som skiljer sig mellan unga kvinnors och mäns finansiella tankesätt i form av mottagligheten för kognitiva snedvridningar, samt huruvida dessa snedvridningar är relaterade till sparbeteende. Som följd av en mansdominerad finansmarknad tillsammans med andra faktorer har kvinnors och mäns ägande genom åren, och fram tills idag skiljt sig åt. Att kvinnor sparar mindre än män, vilket visar sig redan vid ung ålder, ger avtryck i deras framtida ekonomi. Det förstärker även fördomar om kvinnors finansiella beteenden vilket kan bli en bromskloss för kvinnors avancemang på finansmarknaden. “Girl math” är ett fenomen som trendar på sociala medier och handlar om kvinnors finansiella kognitiva snedvridningar och förstärker befintliga fördomar. Frågan som vi ställer oss är hur väl dessa girl math-påståenden om kvinnors finansiella beteende stämmer överens med verkligheten, är girl math sanning eller konsekvens? De kognitiva snedvridningar som undersöks i studien är mental accounting, sunk cost fallacy och opportunity cost neglect. För att studera detta utformade vi en onlinestudie riktad till individer inom åldersspannet 18-30 år. Deltagarna fick svara på frågor kopplade till tre kognitiva snedvridningarna som är framträdande inom girl math samt deras sparbeteende. Tillvägagångssättet för analysen var genom en OLS-regression med flera förklaringsvariabler mot de beroende variablerna. Resultaten indikerar att unga kvinnor är mer mottagliga för mental accounting jämfört med unga män, något som går i linje med tidigare forskning. Däremot kan variabeln kön inte förklara mottagligheten för sunk cost fallacy eller opportunity cost neglect. Det finns inte heller något signifikant samband mellan mottagligheten för våra tre kognitiva snedvridningar och könsskillnader i sparande. Våra resultat mynnar ut i att fenomenet girl math delvis är sanning som troligen uppstått som konsekvens av samhällets finansiella normer och stereotyper. / This study aims to investigate the differences between young women's and men's financial mindsets in terms of susceptibility to behavioral biases, and whether these biases are related to savings behavior. As a result of a male-dominated financial market, along with other factors, women's and men's ownership has diverged over the years, and until today. The fact that women save less than men, which is already evident at a young age, has an impact on their future finances. It also reinforces prejudices about women's financial behavior, which can become a barrier to women's advancement in the financial market. “Girl math” is a phenomenon trending on social media that addresses women's financial behavioral biases and reinforces existing prejudices. The question we ask is how well do these girl math claims about women's financial behavior match reality, is girl math truth or consequence? The behavioral biases examined in the study are mental accounting, sunk cost fallacy and opportunity cost neglect. To study this, we designed an online study aimed at individuals in the age range 18-30 years. Participants were asked to answer questions related to three behavioral biases prominent in girl math and questions about their savings behavior. The approach to the analysis is through an OLS regression with several explanatory variables against the dependent variables. The results indicate that young women are more susceptible to mental accounting compared to young men, which is in line with previous research. However, the variable gender cannot explain the susceptibility to sunk cost fallacy or opportunity cost neglect . There is also no significant relationship between susceptibility to the three behavioral biases and gender differences in savings. Our results conclude that the phenomenon of girl math is partly true and has probably arisen as a consequence of societal financial norms and stereotypes.

The sunk-cost fallacy (SCF) occurs when an individual makes an investment with a low probability of a payoff because an earlier investment has already been made. It is considered an error because a rational decision should not factor in now-irretrievable investments, as they do not affect current outcome likelihoods. Previous research has measured the tendency to commit the SCF by using hypothetical scenarios in which participants must choose to make a future investment or not after making an initial investment. There are many theories as to why people commit the SCF. Loss aversion, which is the preference for uncertain over certain losses, may be related to the SCF. Dual-process theory, which views decision-making in terms of a fast, automatic process called system 1 and a slow, deliberate process called system 2, may also help to explain the SCF. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to complete a sunk-cost questionnaire in which the initial-investment types and amounts varied. They also completed an endowment-effect task as a measure of loss aversion. The SCF was committed most often when the initial investment was large compared to small and most often with money, less with time, and least with effort. There was an interaction effect in which small differences were seen in the SCF between time, effort, and money when the initial investment was small, and differences grew larger as the initial investment increased. Loss aversion displayed a non-significant negative relation with the SCF. In Experiment 2, participants completed a sunk-cost questionnaire in which they were asked to respond as they normally would and then from the perspective of a fictional person described as a logical decision maker. In cases in which they committed the SCF, they were asked to indicate why they continued to invest. They also completed a risky-lottery loss-aversion task. As seen in Experiment 1, the SCF was more likely when initial investments were greater and occurred most when the initial investment was money, less when it was time, and least when it was effort. Loss aversion had a significant but small negative relation with SCF scores. There was no effect of perspective taking. It may be that the SCF is simply due to the over-application of the personal rule “don't waste”, as not wanting to be wasteful was the most-common reason participants gave for why they committed the SCF.

Frequently in MMORPGs, players will encounter something known to players as farming or grinding. Grinding is a controversial matter in the gaming community, as many do not enjoy it and see it as a sign of lazy and poor game design. However, it is a difficult topic to argue as whatever is a grind, differs for each person. To elevate the discussion about grinds in the gaming community, this paper aims to give a definition of grinds and answer how they are perceived by players and designers alike. Grinds are argued to be dull, tedious and monotonous, but they are ever prevalent in games today.  To find what differentiates between a satisfying or waste of time grinding, this paper also aims to discover what makes a grind enjoyable, and when they are appropriate.  The results of this paper are built upon previous works and media on game design and grinds. Interviews were held with players that grind to get a deeper understanding of what drives players to grind. The results define grinds as the act of doing something repeatedly for one's own gain. Seven sub-grinds that are found in different games were defined, each with varying characteristics. Grinds are not inherently bad, despite the negative connotations. They are like any other aspect of a game, they can be executed well or poorly. The developers' responsibility is to design a well-balanced grind that does not hinder players from doing what they like and deliver a satisfying experience.