Name: The counterintuitive psychology of insurance
Uploaded: 2022-02-23T21:20:45Z
Duration: 16 min 12 s
Description: The real reason you buy insurance may have as much to do with pleasing your psyche as it does protecting your wallet. Behavioral psychologist Orit Tykocinski explores the connection between insurance and the reality-distorting risks of "magical thinking" that may make you reconsider your own rationale.

Orit Tykocinski: The counterintuitive psychology of insurance

The counterintuitive psychology of insurance

The real reason you buy insurance may have as much to do with pleasing your psyche as it does protecting your wallet. Behavioral psychologist Orit Tykocinski explores the connection between insurance and the reality-distorting risks of "magical thinking" that may make you reconsider your own rationale.

Buying insurance feels like a shield against disaster, but research shows it mainly soothes our worries instead of changing real risks. In one study, simply reminding people they had health insurance made them believe even a war in Europe was less likely. Our brains confuse emotional comfort with actual protection, leading many to over-insure against unlikely events like a tsunami in Paris. This emotional logic can quietly drive us to unnecessary spending and false security.