Abstract
A quick overview of the literature on the psychology of human behavior will reveal that the concept of expectation is a very central one for the explanation of real-life behavioral phenomena. This is true especially for cognitively oriented approaches, but also for behavioristic or learning approaches (e.g., Tolman’s concept of expectation in learning theory). Since economic psychology, as an applied discipline, has real-life behavior as its concern, it is to be “expected” that the expectations concept plays a major role in this field. This chapter, which is devoted to the concept of expectations in economic psychology, will first explore the theoretical standing of the expectations concept in psychology, in economics and in economic psychology. Next, the operational aspects of measuring expectations and of using them in behavioral forecasts and control will be the concern.
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Vanden Abeele, P. (1988). Economic Agents’ Expectations in a Psychological Perspective. In: van Raaij, W.F., van Veldhoven, G.M., Wärneryd, KE. (eds) Handbook of Economic Psychology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7791-5_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7791-5_13
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