New focus: irrationality

After researching behavioral economics for assignment #3, I've decided that the main focus of my essay will be on the idea of irrationality. Since there are so many instances of irrationality in the news (i.e, people doing things that are just plain dumb), it'll be easier to find ways to connect behavioral economics to topics that are relevant today. 
Also, irrationality is something that everybody is familiar with, to varying degrees. Often times, we don't even recognize that some decisions that we make are irrational. For instance, one of the topics I've been researching is called hyperbolic discounting. According to Wikipedia, "humans show a preference for one that arrives sooner rather than later. Humans are said to discount the value of the later reward, by a factor that increases with the length of the delay" ("Hyperbolic Discounting"). It's "hyperbolic" because the discounting factor eventually reaches an asymptote and levels out. Here's a graphical explanation, which may or may not be helpful ("Hyperbolic Discounting"): 

Hyperbolic discounting works for responsibilities/pains/tasks/etc as well, just reverse. People prolong doing difficult tasks because they feel that the value of their time at the moment is higher than in the future, or that the pain they feel in the future will be somehow less strong. 
While this topic has a very scientific and mathematical background (see: "Golden Eggs and Hyperbolic Discounting" by David Laibson), it also applies to everyday occurrences, making this topic relevant to our lives and important to understand.




Works Cited
"Hyperbolic Discounting ." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 12 Jun 2011. Web. 6 Jul 2011.