The patterns

Sixteen ways to spend without deciding.

Every one of these has a name, and every name has research behind it. GoldMind watches for them in your own logged spending. This page is the list, so you know what it is looking for.

Time

The future is somebody else’s problem.

  • Nudge beside a rail of discounted clothes under a sixty per cent off sign.

    You were not shopping. The discount arrived before the need did.

    Present Bias · O'Donoghue & Rabin 1999

  • Nudge beside a treadmill buried under folded laundry, a gym bag and a water bottle.

    January bought the treadmill. January was optimistic about February.

    Planning Fallacy · Buehler, Griffin & Ross 1994

  • Nudge beside a gym bag with the shop tag still on it, under a calendar with two days ticked.

    Two gym visits this year. It seems a waste to stop now.

    Sunk Cost Fallacy · Arkes & Blumer 1985

Avoidance

Not looking is still a decision.

  • Nudge at a table beside unopened envelopes and a phone turned face-down.

    The statement is still sealed. You already know roughly what it says.

    Ostrich Effect · Galai & Sade 2006

  • Nudge sits beside a set of scales tipped heavily to one side.

    The shares are down forty per cent. Selling is what would make it real.

    Loss Aversion · Kahneman & Tversky 1979

  • Nudge sits beside an open laptop showing a list of subscription rows with one circled in red.

    The subscription renews on Friday. Cancelling takes ten minutes. Renewing takes none.

    Status Quo Bias · Samuelson & Zeckhauser 1988

Framing

How it is presented changes what it feels like.

  • Nudge sits beside an anchor planted in sand with a small flag showing a dollar sign.

    The crossed-out price is still on the tag. It is there to make the new one look small.

    Anchoring · Tversky & Kahneman 1974

  • Nudge sits between three loose coins and a large jar packed full of coins.

    Three dollars a day reads better than eleven hundred a year. It is the same subscription.

    Framing Effect · Tversky & Kahneman 1981

  • Nudge sits beside four jars of coins, one locked, one fenced, one spilling over.

    The refund spends differently to the wage. It is the same money.

    Mental Accounting · Thaler 1985

  • Nudge beside a single banknote and a scattered pile of coins, patting the coins.

    A fifty-dollar note stays in the wallet. The change it becomes does not.

    Denomination Effect · Raghubir & Srivastava 2009

Attention

What is loud right now.

  • Nudge sits still while a crowd of figures walks past him, all pointing the same way.

    Four thousand people gave the headphones five stars. None of them were shopping for you.

    Social Proof · Cialdini 1984

  • Three people at work bought the same stock this month. None of them mentioned what the company does.

    Bandwagon Effect · Banerjee 1992

  • Nudge sits beside a trainer, thinking of the same trainer in a thought bubble above him.

    The ad you saw this morning is the brand that came to mind tonight.

    Availability Shortcut · Tversky & Kahneman 1973

Self-image

What you think you have earned.

  • Nudge sits beside a battery indicator showing almost empty.

    It is nine at night. You have made decisions all day. The order takes one tap.

    Ego Depletion · Baumeister et al. 1998

  • Nudge at a table between a bowl of salad and a large chocolate cake.

    The week went well. You deserve this.

    Moral Licensing · Merritt et al. 2010

  • Nudge sits beside two bars, a tall one marked sure and a shorter one marked right.

    You have been right before. That was a different market and a different you.

    Overconfidence Bias · Odean 1998

Which of these is yours?

Knowing the list is the easy half. GoldMind reads your own logged spending and tells you which patterns are actually driving it, and when.

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