An Additional Gain Can Make You Feel Bad and An Additional Loss Can Make You Feel Good

Abstract

Triggered by an observation that adding an additional small gain/loss can devalue an overall positive/negative evaluation, this research explores whether a monotonically increasing relationship between utility and value could be robust enough to survive a retrospective evaluation of monetary stimuli. Participants reviewed pairs of options that included one option that was a total of $10(20 × 50￠ coins) and another that was a total of $10.3(20 × 50￠ plus an additional 3 × 10￠), and then were asked to rate how pleasant if receiving an option's equivalent reward and how unpleasant if receiving the same amount of fine. A significant majority of participants preferred the smaller/larger option and rated it more pleasant/less unpleasant. This implies that 'a little is not better than nothing', but rather that 'nothing can be better than a little'. A resentment-like feeling as a cause of the observed violation of a monotonically increasing relationship between monetary value and utility is also discussed

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