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Consumers Response More to negative News than Positive Info

"The laboratory provides insight into how cognitively taxing it can become for people exposed to changes in the economic landscape to acquire and process information."
Antonella Tutino
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Economic Letter, Volume 13, Number 7, May 2018

Abstract

Consumers, forced to navigate a constant stream of economic information, are often challenged to sort through details and respond to new material. Experiments suggest that people react more forcefully to negative income shocks than to positive ones. Size also matters: Reaction to small shocks is slower relative to the response to big shocks.

Text Excerpt:

"The laboratory provides insight into how cognitively taxing it can become for people exposed to changes in the economic landscape to acquire and process information."

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