Egocentric empathy gaps between owners and buyers: misperceptions of the endowment effect.
In 5 studies, the authors examined people's perceptions of the endowment effect, or the tendency to value an object more once one owns it. In the 1st 2 studies, the authors documented egocentric empathy gaps between owners and buyers regarding the endowment effect: Both owners and buyers overestimated the similarity between their own valuation of a commodity and the valuation of people in the other role. The next 2 studies showed that these empathy gaps may lead to reduced earnings in a market setting. The final study showed that egocentric empathy gaps stem partly from people's misprediction of what their own valuation would be if they were in the other role.
Department of Psychology, Cornell University, USA. vanboven@commerce.ubc.ca
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L
Van Boven
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Dunning
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Loewenstein
D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D002755:Choice Behavior; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012649:Self Concept; D012938:Social Perception; D014481:United States