Seminar
Boredom and Flow: An Opportunity Cost Theory of Attention-Directing Motivational States
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Series
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Speaker(s)George Loewenstein (Carnegie Mellon University, United States)
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FieldBehavioral Economics
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LocationUniversity of Amsterdam, Room E0.15
Amsterdam -
Date and time
June 09, 2022
16:00 - 17:15
Abstract. We argue that the
motivational states of boredom and flow help individuals to efficiently allocate
attention---a scarce cognitive resource---by encoding information about the
opportunity cost of maintaining attention in a hedonic signal. We develop a
dual-self model in which one self (the executive) makes the final decision
about how to allocate attention, but expends attention to do so, while the
other self (the advisor) biases this decision with a hedonic signal that does
not use attention. The resulting utility specification makes novel behavioral
predictions, has important implications for welfare analysis, and provides a
unified explanation of existing empirical evidence.