2012-11-03 papers

on Neuroeconomics

Issue of 2012‒11‒03
two papers chosen by

How the Allocation of Children’s Time Affects Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Development By Michael P. Keane
When do consumers indulge in luxury? Emotional certainty signals when to indulge to regulate affect By Francine Espinoza Petersen

How the Allocation of Children’s Time Affects Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Development

By:	Michael P. Keane (Nuffield College, University of Oxford)
Abstract:	The allocation of children’s time among different activities may be important for their cognitive and non-cognitive development. In our work we exploit time use diaries from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children to study the effect of time allocation across a wide range of alternative activities. By doing so we characterize the trade-off between the activities to which a child is exposed. On the one hand, our results suggest that time spent in educational activities, particularly with parents, is the most productive input for cognitive skill development. On the other hand, non-cognitive skills appear insensitive to alternative time allocations. Instead, these skills are greatly affected by the mother’s parenting style.
Date:	2012–10–16
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nuf:econwp:1209&r=neu

When do consumers indulge in luxury? Emotional certainty signals when to indulge to regulate affect

By:	Francine Espinoza Petersen (ESMT European School of Management and Technology)
Abstract:	Current theorizing suggests that the valence of an affective state alone cannot explain indulgent consumption but that this is contingent on whether indulging can improve a negative state or will not hurt a positive state. This research shows that when an emotion is associated with the appraisal of uncertainty (certainty), consumers infer that their affective state can (cannot) change. As a result, people in a negative affective state will indulge more when their affect is associated with uncertainty because indulging can help repair the negative state, but people in a positive affective state will indulge more when their affective state is associated with certainty because indulging will not hurt their positive state. Reconciling earlier research reporting apparently inconsistent results linking emotional valence, affect regulation, and indulgence, these findings suggest that the certainty appraisal of specific emotions is important in predicting indulgent consumption to regulate one’s affect. Implications are discussed.
Keywords:	emotion, certainty, appraisal, affect regulation, indulgence, luxury consumption
Date:	2012–10–22
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esm:wpaper:esmt-12-06&r=neu

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