Abstract
Consumers exhibit unrealistically optimistic marketplace expectations — extending Kahneman and Tversky’s planning fallacy from project timelines to consumer purchase and consumption forecasts (Clark, Tansey, & Wynn, 2014).
Clark, J. W., Tansey, R., & Wynn, G. W. (2014). The planning fallacy: Consumers’ unrealistically optimistic marketplace expectations. In Proceedings of the 2003 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 250–255). Springer. DOI
Key findings
- Planning fallacy transfer: — Clark et al. (2014) apply the planning fallacy — tendency to underestimate task duration and overestimate success — to consumer marketplace expectations.
- Optimism mechanism: — Consumers forecast better outcomes than base rates justify; attributions after failure may preserve self-esteem rather than update beliefs.
Application
When a consumer selects a low-premium health plan expecting minimal healthcare use — underestimating total annual cost when utilization exceeds forecast — open this cite for the study behind the move.