This is the second post in a series called Commercialism and Faith, in which I will explore the relationship between the language of our culture (commercialism) and how we view and relate to God. Advertisers often play on something psychologists call Loss Aversion. Loss Aversion is an aspect of Prospect Theory, a theory that seeks to determine why people make certain decisions. Loss Aversion suggests people are more motivated to avoid losing something than they are to acquire something new. For instance, in a study done on a street in Las Vegas, passers by were given a twenty-dollar bill and then given the opportunity to double their money by betting on a single card. They could walk away with the twenty, or double their money. Most participants chose to walk away from the game, keeping the twenty-dollar bill they had just been given. But when the game was changed and the participants were given forty dollars, only to have twenty taken back a moment later and then given a chance to win back the twenty taken from them, nearly all participants decided to take the same risk and get back what they had lost. In other words, when they had something and [...]
