Citation

Lefgren LJ, Stoddard OB, Stovall JE. J. Health Econ. 2020; 76: e102407.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jhealeco.2020.102407

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Why do individuals engage in self-defeating behaviors like self-harm, addiction, and risky sexual behaviors? Why do they experience the apathy of depression or inaction when trapped by multiple competing problems? We propose a framework for explaining these and other related behaviors based on the insight that individuals can only experience a limited number of latent stimuli to which they are exposed. We conduct an experiment to test this model and find that more than two thirds of the subjects behave consistent with our theoretical framework.

Language: en

Keywords

Theory; Experiment; Self-defeating behaviors