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  3. Even the best-intentioned policies can fall prey to the oddity of human beha

Even the best-intentioned policies can fall prey to the oddity of human beha

游客2024-05-20  24
问题     Even the best-intentioned policies can fall prey to the oddity of human behavior, as a new study of credit-card repayment finds. In order to stop borrowers from being hit by an accumulation of unpaid interest whenever they fail to pay their bill, there are laws requiring credit-card companies to specify a minimum payment in each statement. But these may do more harm than good, suggests Neil Stewart, a psychologist at Warwick University.
    Mr. Stewart was studying a phenomenon known as "anchoring". Psychologists have found that being exposed to numbers, even irrelevant ones, can affect people’s decisions. For example, diners tend to spend more in a restaurant named "Caf6 97" than in one named "Cafe 17". Since minimum payments on credit-card statements are usually small amounts, Mr. Stewart wondered whether seeing an actual amount might make people pay less than they would otherwise have done. That is exactly what he found.
    Mr. Stewart presented 413 people with fake credit-card bills of ￡ 435.76 that were identical — except that only half mentioned a minimum payment of ￡ 5.42. Participants were asked how much they would pay.
    Among those inclined to pay the bill in full, the presence of the minimum payment hardly made any difference. However, those who wanted to pay just part of it handed over 43% less on average when presented with a minimum payment. In the real world, this would roughly double interest charges.
    Economists will be interested in the results. Behavioral economists advocate "nudging (用肘 轻推) people in the right direction by subtly altering the choices that they are presented with. The insistence on minimum payments is a variation on this theme. Supposedly, those confronted by minimum-payment requirements should pay at least that much. In fact Mr. Stewart’s work suggests that people who would have paid a lot, paid less. In economics, as in life, nudging needs to be done carefully. [br] For part-paying borrowers, the minimum payment laws would make them pay approximately ______interest charges.
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答案 double
解析 根据part-paying borrowers和interest charges定位在原文第四段最后两句。原文中说，那些不打算还全款的人(those who wanted to pay just part of it)在遇到最低还款额的时候，他们还款的额度平均会减少43％，这种情况会使得他们要支付的利息几乎翻倍(roughly double interest charges).题干中的part-paying borrowers对应原文中的those who wanted to pay just part of it。空格处要求填入一个形容词(短语)，原文说利息几乎翻倍，也就是说要付双倍的利息，故本题答案为double。
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