In six studies, we find evidence of efficiency neglect: when thinking about the effects of population growth, people intuitively focus on increased demand while neglecting the changes in production efficiency that occur alongside, and often in response to, increased demand. In other words, people tend to think of others solely as consumers, rather than as consumers as well as producers. Efficiency neglect leads to beliefs that the real costs of some consumer goods are rising when they are actually decreasing and may contribute to antiimmigration sentiments because of the fear that increasing local population creates competition for fixed resources. We demonstrate that economic pessimism and antiimmigration sentiments are reduced when people are prompted to consider their own beliefs about increased productivity over time, but are unchanged when they consider their beliefs about increases in demand. Together, these findings shed light on people's lay economic theories and suggest promising interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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效率忽视：为什么人们对人口增长的影响持悲观态度。


在六项研究中，我们发现了效率忽视的证据：在考虑人口增长的影响时，人们直观地关注需求的增加，而忽视了与需求增加同时发生的、通常是响应需求增加而发生的生产效率的变化。换句话说，人们倾向于仅将他人视为消费者，而不是既是消费者又是生产者。效率忽视导致人们相信，某些消费品的实际成本实际上在下降，但它们的实际成本却在上升，并且可能会助长反移民情绪，因为担心当地人口的增加会造成对固定资源的竞争。我们证明，当人们被提示考虑自己对生产力随着时间的推移而提高的信念时，经济悲观主义和反移民情绪会减少，但当他们考虑自己对需求增加的信念时，经济悲观主义和反移民情绪不会改变。总之，这些发现揭示了人们的普通经济理论，并提出了有希望的干预措施。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。