Brain Imaging Study Provides New Insight Into Why People Pay Too Much In Auctions
Saturday, September 27, 2008 - 19:21
in Psychology & Sociology
Auctions are an old and widely used method for allocating goods that have become increasingly common with the advent of internet auctions sites such as Ebay. Previous economic research has shown that in an auction people tend to bid "too high," or overbid, given the value of the item for sale. By combining brain imaging techniques with behavioral economic research, neuroscientists and economists were able to provide new insight into this tendency to overbid.