Today we’re doing that thing we love to do: taking age-old advice, rolling it up into a ball, and dunking it with the speed and grace of a green-screened figure.
You don’t have to budget to live a frugal, responsible life.
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Making Decisions Under Stress: The Siren Song of Chocolate Cake
I’m a slut for studies.
I love random, weird studies that reveal surprising and bizarre correlations. And I’d like to take you through one of my favorites today. It’s called “Heart and Mind in Conflict: the Interplay of Affect and Cognition in Consumer Decision Making.” It’s about the ways that stress affects our ability to make good choices.
Oh, and more importantly: it stars a fat slab of chocolate cake.
“Wow,” you may be thinking, “wasn’t the last study Kitty wrote about all about marshmallows? Do you guys cover any studies that don’t prominently feature dessert?”
To which I say: “You have bought me not sweet cane with money, nor have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices; rather you have burdened me with your sins, you have wearied me with your iniquities.”
That’s Ye Olde Testament Speak for you shut the hell up and learn about cognitive behavioral science while looking at my collection of chocolate cake gifs!
On Financial Discipline, Generational Poverty, and Marshmallows
What’s your methodology for eating a bowl of Lucky Charms? And in a related question: how’s your financial discipline?
Do you peck the marshmallows out first, like a marshmallow-loving chicken? Or do you eat around them, creating a cereal-free pleasure palace of marshmallows, swimming together decadently in their milk? Or do you dig in holistically, indiscriminately, with marshmallows and cereal intermingling freely, devil-may-care, eating whatever ends up on your spoon?
The answer could reveal a whole lot about your life, your personality, and the health of your personal finances. We know this thanks to a fascinating series of studies conducted on children eating marshmallows.
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