Hyperopia
Definition:
Hyperopia is the technical medical term for farsightedness. It also has begun to be used in economic research regarding how people project the impact that choices made today will have on their futures. In this context, people who suffer from hyperopia overestimate the future benefits that will accrue from work and the postponement of pleasure. As time passes, they increasingly tend to express regret over choosing work over pleasure in the past.
As reported in the September-October 2009 issue of Harvard Magazine, professor Ran Kivetz of Columbia Business School and assistant professor Anat Keinan of Harvard Business School are surveying people's attitudes on the tradeoff between work and pleasure, asking them whether specific choices made in the past were, in hindsight, worth it.
These researchers find that, as more time passes after a specific incident in which people had to choose between work and pleasure, they become increasingly more likely to say that devoting the time to pleasure was (or should have been) the right choice. Only when the incident occurred a week or less in the past does a narrow majority of people say that work was (or should have been) the right choice. As years pass, an increasingly overwhelming majority believes that the time should have been spent on leisure, and expresses increasing regret if it had been spent on work.
This study has potentially important implications for financial planners and financial advisors who wisely counsel people to be prudent, postponing pleasures and consumption to save for a more secure future.
Also Known As: farsightedness, overestimating future benefits from responsible decisions today
Examples: Hyperopia led Jack to spend so much time at the office during his lifetime that he came to regret it in later life, saying that he should have enjoyed life more.
Hyperopia is the technical medical term for farsightedness. It also has begun to be used in economic research regarding how people project the impact that choices made today will have on their futures. In this context, people who suffer from hyperopia overestimate the future benefits that will accrue from work and the postponement of pleasure. As time passes, they increasingly tend to express regret over choosing work over pleasure in the past.
As reported in the September-October 2009 issue of Harvard Magazine, professor Ran Kivetz of Columbia Business School and assistant professor Anat Keinan of Harvard Business School are surveying people's attitudes on the tradeoff between work and pleasure, asking them whether specific choices made in the past were, in hindsight, worth it.
These researchers find that, as more time passes after a specific incident in which people had to choose between work and pleasure, they become increasingly more likely to say that devoting the time to pleasure was (or should have been) the right choice. Only when the incident occurred a week or less in the past does a narrow majority of people say that work was (or should have been) the right choice. As years pass, an increasingly overwhelming majority believes that the time should have been spent on leisure, and expresses increasing regret if it had been spent on work.
This study has potentially important implications for financial planners and financial advisors who wisely counsel people to be prudent, postponing pleasures and consumption to save for a more secure future.
Also Known As: farsightedness, overestimating future benefits from responsible decisions today
Examples: Hyperopia led Jack to spend so much time at the office during his lifetime that he came to regret it in later life, saying that he should have enjoyed life more.
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