Psychology of economic behavior

According to V.A. Poison, human behavior is a form of activity, its outer side ¹ .

Economic behavior is usually called the behavior caused by economic incentives, and the activities of the economic entity. Economic psychology is aimed at studying the processes and mechanisms underlying consumption or other types of economic behavior, and above all preferences, choices, decisions and factors affecting them.

Any act of a person is usually preceded by perception, judgment, understanding of the situation and oneself in it, i.e. cognitive (cognitive) components; subjective attitude, colored by feelings, i.e. the affirmative (emotional) components, and finally, the action or, conversely, its containment, i.e. conative (action-dynamic) components. Considering economic behavior, scientists, as a rule, single out these three very closely interrelated components for its analysis.

There are some discrepancies in the more specific definitions of their subject by the young domestic economic psychology and by the fairly mature and practically oriented Western European and American ones. Representatives of the latter, as a rule, remain on the non-behavioral position and prioritize economic behavior. Avoiding the loss of one’s own specific subject and the transformation of economic psychology into a psychological economy, A.V. Filipov and S.V. Kovalev emphasize that economic consciousness should be subject to consideration by economic psychology ² . Facing here with a discrepancy at the theoretical and methodological level, we do not see a sharp discrepancy at the empirical level, because Western European and American studies usually encompass cognitive and affective, and not only effective-dynamic components of economic behavior, they have accumulated to date a rich empirical material, presented valuable observations and generalizations about the perception and understanding of economic phenomena (economic mind) and attitudes towards them.