Re: poly: Why Oldies Stations?

Perry writes:
>> >> 3) People invest in integrating this stuff into their lives, ...
>> >4) People have trouble changing their habits, ...
>> I'm not sure there is a distinction here. ...
>I brush my teeth before I shave in the morning, out of habit. There is
>no real function to doing so before shaving vs. after shaving,
>however. None the less, I would have difficulty shifting the order --

Let's say that people make cognitive investments when they create
habits. Habits are packages of behavior that one chooses to invoke or not
as a package. Creating packages economizes on thinking, as one need only
think about when the package as a whole is a good idea. But it makes
choices less modular, and raises the cost of changing stuff inside a package.

I'm not sure how far we can get by saying older people don't listen to
new fangled radio stations because they're in the habit of listening to
old. The cognitive cost to change radio stations doesn't seem very high.

Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar, Sch. of Public Health 510-643-1884
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 FAX: 510-643-8614
Received on Fri Apr 3 19:15:52 1998