Research suggests that we set ourselves up for loss aversion almost instantly. In a brilliant series of studies, researchers walked into university classrooms and gave a gift at random to roughly half of the students: a coffee mug with the university’s logo. The students who weren’t given a mug were asked, “How much would you pay for one of those?” On average, they said $2.87. But the surprise came from the students who’d received the mugs. Asked at what price they’d sell the mugs, they reported that they couldn’t part with them for less than $7.12. Five minutes earlier, all the students in
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