{"id":17260,"date":"2020-03-19T08:38:25","date_gmt":"2020-03-19T12:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/behavioralobservations.com\/?p=17260"},"modified":"2020-03-19T08:38:32","modified_gmt":"2020-03-19T12:38:32","slug":"the-behavioral-economics-of-toilet-paper-session-113-with-derek-reed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/behavioralobservations.com\/be_obs\/the-behavioral-economics-of-toilet-paper-session-113-with-derek-reed","title":{"rendered":"The Behavioral Economics of Toilet Paper: Session 113 with Derek Reed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dr. Derek Reed<\/p><\/div>\n

Dr. Derek Reed joins me today to discuss the behavioral economic principles that underpin so much of what we're seeing today as the world attempts to cope with the Coronavirus pandemic. From buying all the toilet paper in sight, to heeding (or more to the point, not heeding) government guidelines for social distancing, Derek relates these behavioral patterns to some very basic operant principles.<\/p>\n

We start the show with a quick overview of three key behavioral economic terms: Delay Discounting, Probability Discounting, and Behavioral Economic Demand. We then talk about how these processes can be used to interpret some of the fascinating societal behavior that we're seeing all around us, including, of course, the panic-buying of toilet paper.<\/p>\n

Derek then goes on to describe some of the research that he has done in this area, and suggests some lines of future research. We also discuss some the shortcomings of traditional ABA research designs in studying these phenomena, along with what we can do to overcome these barriers.<\/p>\n