The End of The Beginning

For our last blog post of the semester, we were asked to write about what we have learned. I started thinking about how my outlook and my purchasing behavior have changed throughout the semester. I also thought about all of the tedious writing that was required of us throughout the semester.

I looked back at my first blog and I remember taking HOURS to write it. I brainstormed for a considerable amount of time and then wanted to make sure that all of my content was perfect. Even though I admit that I was stressed out by the heavy reading and writing that this class entailed, it really has made me a better and faster writer. After all, I'm wrapping up an entire semester's worth of knowledge in less than an hour of writing a single blog post. I hope that you have enjoyed reading my blog and that you found it relevant, interesting, and entertaining!

Going back to how my outlook and purchasing behaviors have changed. Now, I find that I am very critical of how people seem to "rationalize" different buying behaviors. I have a friend that says "Wow, that's a deal. I'm losing money not buying it." That one always gets me. Or my roommate will say, "Look at this purse I bought today Jodi, it says it was originally $100 and I got it for $35." She exclaims this bubbling with excitement feeling that she has just made an extremely smart purchase and defeated the market.  I just remind them how well they're taking the bait that marketers have thrown at them.

I look at all of the inserts in magazines and see how they offer FREE gifts and huge discounts for buying a full one or two year subscription and I'm reminded of Nudge.

I see people behaving extremely irrationally around me and encourage them to be smarter consumers. But then, I reflect on recent purchases and think "yikes they got me again..I really didn't need that." Or I'll spend that extra $20 just so I can get free shipping. It's really quite interesting. I have become very aware of the marketing tactics that are so often so effective and I still can justify spending $100 on a pair of sunglasses because "if I die tomorrow, I can't take my money with me." Completely irrational.

Another thing I have started to understand more deeply and actually have started to disagree with is that the ideas of "Econs" and "Humans" (pointed out in the assigned reading of Nudge and Predictably Irrational) are opposing forces. Predictably Irrational devotes a lot of the book to protesting the economics in general is not consistent with how humans actually behave. However, as an economics minor, when discussing economics theory, we recognize that people in groups make consumer decisions differently than a single person. We also take into account the effects of purchasing behavior on families, single persons, and people of different religions/cultures/social classes. All things that are consistent with consumer behavior study. I have started to think that a lot of economics is actually just the quantitative research of consumer behavior's heavily qualitative concepts.

 All in all, I think the main thing that this class brought to the table was that it made me think critically and analytically and be able to then communicate that in an effective way. It also made me aware of behaviors and tendencies that are consistent throughout different groups. These behaviors and tendencies are things that I previously engaged in subconsciously. Though I may still behave like a "human" and act "predictably irrational" at times, I am much more aware of how businesses, marketers, politicians, friends, families, etc. try to appeal to our plethora of emotions and "nudge" us to behave a certain way. Maybe I'll even refrain from over-stuffing myself at Thanksgiving next year. :)