Scientific Definition
Spending money triggers genuine psychological pain — and credit cards quietly mute it.
Plain-English Definition
Spending money triggers genuine psychological pain — and credit cards quietly mute it.
Feynman Explanation
Plastic is the anesthesia of consumer finance.
Core Principle
Spending money triggers genuine psychological pain — and credit cards quietly mute it.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Spending money triggers genuine psychological pain — and credit cards quietly mute it.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pricing structure (subscription, prepaid, post-paid) is a pain-management decision.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Plastic is the anesthesia of consumer finance.
Examples
- Same dinner, paid cash vs. paid card — the cash one feels twice as expensive.
- Pricing structure (subscription, prepaid, post-paid) is a pain-management decision.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Match payment friction to the behavior you want — high friction to discourage, low to enable.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Match payment friction to the behavior you want — high friction to discourage, low to enable.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
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Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Exploiting price differences between markets for risk-free profit.
The study of how real humans actually decide — bounded, social, emotional, and inconsistent.
With clear property rights and low transaction costs, parties negotiate to efficient outcomes.
Specialize in what you give up the least to do.
Complements raise each other's value; substitutes lower it.
Fixed costs don't scale with output; variable costs do.
Innovation destroys old industries and creates new ones.
Each additional unit produces less marginal benefit.
A long-run planner self in conflict with a short-run impulsive self.
Owning something raises its valuation — sellers want more to give it up than buyers will pay to acquire.
Bad money drives out good when both are legally equivalent.
The mythical fully rational, self-interested, utility-maximizing agent neoclassical models assume.