Not yet anyways, but I'm eating one anyways.
Cause why not? It's still pretty good.
These peaches are put out at work for anyone to eat when they please. There aren't ALWAYS peaches, but in the summer time there are frequently. And these peaches get taken quickly.
This means that I have little to no incentive to leave them and wait for them to ripen. If I do wait they're likely to be gone by the time they're ripe. I could take one and let it sit by my desk, but then I run the risk of forgetting about it and letting it rot.
The quality of these peaches is that they are here, right now, to be eaten, even if they're subprime.
Is there an economic principle that explains this behavior?
It's not the Problem of the Commons, I know that. That's the explanation for when I eat too many free peaches and have a stomach ache while others are left without peaches to enjoy.
Thoughts or suggestions? Chime in please...
5 comments:
sounds like your peach bowl might be a non-Pareto optimal allocation of resources. should the fruit change, or the people? who can say...
I definitely saw this at my last job. I'd like to call it the Cake Concept. Perhaps you're familiar with the scenario: there's leftover cake somewhere in the office; a coworker murmurs "cake in the kitchen" as they hustle past your desk; you sprint for the kitchen knowing it'll be gone but you never even considering whether you need a slice of cake.
...Maybe it's never happened to you, but it was a frequent occurrence for me.
Supply and Cake Demand.
Loss aversion explains your choice. Let's play a simple game. It's called the Gifting Game. Which option would you choose:
THE GIFTING GAME
OPTION A:
You win $50 for sure.
OPTION B:
Flip a coin. Heads you win nothing. Tails you win $100.
Most people choose Option A. It's a bird in the hand!
Now let's play a slightly different game called the LOSING GAME: This time I hand you $100. Which option would you choose:
THE LOSING GAME
OPTION A: You lose $50 for sure
OPTION B: Flip a coin. Heads you lose nothing. Tails you lose $100.
Most people choose Option B. But both games are actually identical! They're just framed differently. So what explains the preference switch?
Loss aversion. People hate taking certain losses. So when people are considering a certain loss, they'll often accept a gamble to avoid it. They become risk seeking.
The peach game you play at work is like the GIFTING GAME above. People love sure gains and they'll avoid gambles to get them.
OPTION A: You eat a subprime peach for sure.
OPTION B: Flip a coin. Heads you eat no peach. Tails you eat a ripe peach.
You always choose the subprime peach. Bird in the hand, right?
I agree with the loss aversion but will also combine it with the idea of ex-ante value. You can see that while the peach is not yet ripe, it will be ripe in the future, and you know this value will come even though it is not here now. Noticing this value, you take the peach.
Late post, Peter, but I'd call it greed and glut.
but hell, I'd take a peach, too. I now live in Georgia where sometimes in the summer I swear peaches grow by binary fission in the grocery store bins, and I always over-buy anyway. I think it's because I still have their peachy, warm, summer flavor in my head as I'm putting the 14th one in the grocery bag. -a.hare
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