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  3. Even the best-intentioned policies can fail prey to the oddity of human behavior, as a new study of credit-card repayment finds.

Even the best-intentioned policies can fail prey to the oddity of human behavior, as a new study of credit-card repayment finds.

admin2010-10-28  37
问题      Even the best-intentioned policies can fail prey to the oddity of human behavior, as a new study of credit-card repayment finds. In order to stop borrowers from being hit by an accumulation of unpaid interest whenever they fail to pay their bill, there are laws requiring credit-card companies to specify a minimum payment in each statement. But these may do more harm than good, suggests Neil Stewart, a psychologist at Warwick University.
     Mr. Stewart was studying a phenomenon known as "anchoring". Psychologists have found that being exposed to numbers, even irrelevant ones, can affect people’s decisions. For example, diners tend to spend more in a restaurant named "Cafe 97" than in one named "Cafe 17". Since minimum payments on credit-card statements are usually small amounts, Mr. Stewart wondered whether seeing an actual amount might make people pay less than they would otherwise have done. That is exactly what he found.
     Mr. Stewart presented 413 people with fake credit-card bills of S 435.76 that were identical -- except that only half mentioned a minimum payment of ￡5.42. Participants were asked how much they would pay.
     Among those inclined to pay the bill in full, the presence of the minimum payment hardly made any difference. However, those who wanted to pay just part of it handed over 43% less on average when presented with a minimum payment. In the real world, this would roughly double interest charges.
     Economists will be interested in the results. Behavioral economists advocate" nudging(用肘轻推)" people in the right direction by subtly altering the choices that they are presented with. The insistence on minimum payments is a variation on this theme. Supposedly, those confronted by minimum-payment requirements should pay at least that much. In fact Mr. Stewart’s work suggests that people who would have paid a lot, paid less. In economics, as in life, nudging needs to be done carefully.
That diners spend more in a restaurant named "Cafe 97" than in one named "Cafe 17" shows numbers can
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答案affect people’s decisions
解析 由定位句可知，用餐者在“Cafe 97”饭店用餐的费用往往比在“Cafe 17”高；由For example可知，本例是对上文的举例说明。原文上一句提到，心理学家们发现数字可以影响人们的决定，可见这一现象正好验证了这一发现，故本题答案为affect people’s decisions。
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