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Pessimism and Overcommitment: An Online Experiment with Tempting YouTube Content
Author(s)
Date Issued
2022-01-24
Date Available
2022-02-28T16:43:00Z
Abstract
This paper explores the possibility that demand for costly commitment may prove unnecessary and thus excessive. In an online experiment, subjects face a tedious productivity task where tempting YouTube videos invite procrastination. Subjects can pay for a commitment device that removes the videos with some probability less than one, allowing us to compare their willingness to pay with realized material and psychological costs of temptation. A significant share of subjects overestimate their commitment demand, being overly pessimistic about their performance when tempted. However, the total realized ex-post disutility from undercommitment is greater than that from overcommitment.
Other Sponsorship
Torsten Söderberg Foundation
Formas
Type of Material
Working Paper
Publisher
University College Dublin. School of Economics
Start Page
1
End Page
49
Series
UCD Centre for Economic Research Working Paper Series
WP2022/03
Copyright (Published Version)
2022 the Authors
Classification
C91
D03
D91
Language
English
Status of Item
Not peer reviewed
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
File(s)
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Name
WP22_03.pdf
Size
1.49 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
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1f2007b029c507fa319f00fb00626324
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