To Savour Consumption or To Confront Dread: The Hedonic Opportunity Cost of Attention
研究发现，当人们享受当下消费时，会减少对可能令人担忧的未来信息的关注，并更愿意花钱规避风险，这解释了为何政治人物可能用“面包与马戏”来压制信息需求。
Abstract People face a fundamental trade-off between savouring consumption in the present and processing information. Both require attention, which is limited. As a result, directing attention to one necessarily comes at the expense of the other. We study this attentional opportunity cost, focusing on cases where information concerns potentially distressing future outcomes. Across four experiments, we find that higher present consumption reduces demand for such information and increases willingness to pay for risk mitigation. These findings have implications for models of anticipatory utility, self-regulation under limited attention and the political economy of distraction—helping to explain, for instance, why political actors might suppress demand for information by offering ‘bread and circuses’.