Gift cards and mental accounting: Green-lighting hedonic spending
Helion and Gilovich report three studies: gift cards led people to spend more on hedonic than utilitarian goods when both were available and needs were unchanged; participants chose gift cards to pay for hedonic items, those paid in gift cards spent more on hedonic goods in a laboratory store, and bookstore transaction data showed more hedonic spending with gift cards than with credit cards. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 27(4), 386-393, 2014.
Helion and Gilovich report three studies: gift cards led people to spend more on hedonic than utilitarian goods when both were available and needs were unchanged; participants chose gift cards to pay for hedonic items, those paid in gift cards spent more on hedonic goods in a laboratory store, and bookstore transaction data showed more hedonic spending with gift cards than with credit cards. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 27(4), 386-393, 2014.
Written from the abstract summary, Crossref, 2026-11-04; read at abstract level only.
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Helion, C., & Gilovich, T. (2014). Gift cards and mental accounting: Green-lighting hedonic spending. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 27(4), 386-393. doi:10.1002/bdm.1813 https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.1813