IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joepsy/v31y2010i6p1047-1056.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Experiencing costs and benefits of a loan transaction: The role of cost-benefit associations

Author

Listed:
  • Kamleitner, Bernadette
  • Hoelzl, Erik
  • Kirchler, Erich

Abstract

Financial transactions involve costs and benefits. This also holds for loan transactions where the loan itself constitutes the main cost and the loan-financed possession constitutes the main benefit. This paper aims to investigate how the way consumers mentally associate costs and benefits influences their evaluation of these costs and benefits. In line with previous research we distinguish between strength and direction (costs bring to mind benefits or vice versa) of cost-benefit-associations. We posit that the occurrence of cost-benefit-associations constitutes a meta-cognitive experience which may influence consumer judgments in different ways. It may influence the evaluation of the base cognition and it may influence the evaluation of associated cognition. Whereas existing theorizing points to an effect on the former, an effect on the latter is equally conceivable. A field study with actual credit users and an experiment identify relations other than those previously assumed. If benefits elicit thoughts of costs, the perceived cost (here: loan burden) increase. If costs elicit thoughts of benefits, no effects on the transaction experience are observed. Implications for the theoretical analyses of cost-benefit-associations and for future research aiming to alleviate perceived loan burden are derived.

Suggested Citation

  • Kamleitner, Bernadette & Hoelzl, Erik & Kirchler, Erich, 2010. "Experiencing costs and benefits of a loan transaction: The role of cost-benefit associations," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 1047-1056, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:31:y:2010:i:6:p:1047-1056
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-4870(10)00108-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thaler, Richard H, 1990. "Saving, Fungibility, and Mental Accounts," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 193-205, Winter.
    2. John Watkins, 2009. "Corporate Profits and Personal Misery: Credit, Gender, and the Distribution of Income," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(2), pages 413-422.
    3. Bernadette Kamleitner & Erich Kirchler, 2006. "Personal loan users’ mental integration of payment and consumption," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 281-294, December.
    4. Richard H. Thaler, 2008. "Mental Accounting and Consumer Choice," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(1), pages 15-25, 01-02.
    5. Kristina Shampanier & Nina Mazar & Dan Ariely, 2007. "Zero as a Special Price: The True Value of Free Products," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(6), pages 742-757, 11-12.
    6. Drazen Prelec & George Loewenstein, 1998. "The Red and the Black: Mental Accounting of Savings and Debt," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 4-28.
    7. Hirst, D. Eric & Joyce, Edward J. & Schadewald, Michael S., 1994. "Mental Accounting and Outcome Contiguity in Consumer-Borrowing Decisions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 136-152, April.
    8. Heath, Chip & Soll, Jack B, 1996. "Mental Budgeting and Consumer Decisions," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 23(1), pages 40-52, June.
    9. Joseph Guiltinan, 2010. "Consumer durables replacement decision-making: An overview and research agenda," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 163-174, June.
    10. Shefrin, Hersh M & Thaler, Richard H, 1988. "The Behavioral Life-Cycle Hypothesis," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(4), pages 609-643, October.
    11. Shafir, Eldar & Thaler, Richard H., 2006. "Invest now, drink later, spend never: On the mental accounting of delayed consumption," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 694-712, October.
    12. Heath, Chip & Fennema, M. G., 1996. "Mental Depreciation and Marginal Decision Making," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 95-108, November.
    13. Carey K. Morewedge & Leif Holtzman & Nicholas Epley, 2007. "Unfixed Resources: Perceived Costs, Consumption, and the Accessible Account Effect," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 34(4), pages 459-467, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Linda Dezső & Barna Bakó & Gábor Neszveda, 2022. "Exploiting context-dependent preferences to protect borrowers," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 27(4), pages 291-305, December.
    2. Emilio Abad-Segura & Mariana-Daniela González-Zamar, 2020. "Global Research Trends in Financial Transactions," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-32, April.
    3. Thunström, Linda & Gilbert, Ben & Ritten, Chian Jones, 2018. "Nudges that hurt those already hurting – distributional and unintended effects of salience nudges," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 267-282.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antonides, Gerrit & Manon de Groot, I. & Fred van Raaij, W., 2011. "Mental budgeting and the management of household finance," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 546-555, August.
    2. Ina Garnefeld & Andreas Eggert & Markus Husemann-Kopetzky & Eva Böhm, 2019. "Exploring the link between payment schemes and customer fraud: a mental accounting perspective," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 47(4), pages 595-616, July.
    3. Chu, Hsunchi & Liao, Shuling, 2010. "Buying while expecting to sell: The economic psychology of online resale," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(9-10), pages 1073-1078, September.
    4. Bernadette Kamleitner, 2008. "Coupling: the implicit assumption behind sunk cost effect and related phenomena," Working Papers 22, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research.
    5. Min Chung Han, 2022. "Would you like to donate your reward points today? Mental accounting and checkout charity," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 19(3), pages 533-553, September.
    6. Amasino, Dianna R. & Dolgin, Jack & Huettel, Scott A., 2023. "Eyes on the account size: Interactions between attention and budget in consumer choice," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    7. Bernadette Kamleitner & Bianca Hornung & Erich Kirchler, 2010. "Over-indebtedness and the interplay of factual and mental money management: An interview study," Working Papers 34, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research.
    8. Ume Habibah & Ibne Hassan & Muhammad Shahid Iqbal & Naintara, 2018. "Household behavior in practicing mental budgeting based on the theory of planned behavior," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 4(1), pages 1-14, December.
    9. Johannes Abeler & Felix Marklein, 2017. "Fungibility, Labels, and Consumption," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 99-127.
    10. Mohammad Reza Nikbakht & Mehrdad Sadr Ara, 2016. "A new experimental model for profit maximization," Journal of Economic and Financial Studies (JEFS), LAR Center Press, vol. 4(3), pages 45-52, June.
    11. Dilip Soman & Amar Cheema, 2002. "The Effect of Credit on Spending Decisions: The Role of the Credit Limit and Credibility," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(1), pages 32-53, September.
    12. Isabelle Brocas & Juan D. Carrillo, 2008. "The Brain as a Hierarchical Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(4), pages 1312-1346, September.
    13. Koch, Alexander K. & Nafziger, Julia, 2016. "Goals and bracketing under mental accounting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 305-351.
    14. Manel Baucells & Woonam Hwang, 2017. "A Model of Mental Accounting and Reference Price Adaptation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 4201-4218, December.
    15. Liu, Hsin-Hsien, 2013. "How promotional frames affect upgrade intentions," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 237-248.
    16. Karlsson, Niklas & Garling, Tommy & Selart, Marcus, 1999. "Explanations of effects of prior income changes on buying decisions," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 449-463, August.
    17. Kirchler, Erich & Hoelzl, Erik & Kamleitner, Bernadette, 2008. "Spending and credit use in the private household," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 519-532, April.
    18. Cheng, Andong & Baskin, Ernest, 2021. "Disproportionate redemption discounting: Mental accounting of discounted credit," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 156-163.
    19. Li Chen & A. Gürhan Kök & Jordan D. Tong, 2013. "The Effect of Payment Schemes on Inventory Decisions: The Role of Mental Accounting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(2), pages 436-451, September.
    20. Rajagopal, Priyali & Rha, Jong-Youn, 2009. "The mental accounting of time," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 772-781, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:31:y:2010:i:6:p:1047-1056. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/joep .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.