Investigating the Impact of Economic, Social, Moral Preferences and Locus of Control on Life Outcomes

Behavioral economics is based on the idea that increasing realistic psychological evidence in economic analysis improves the ability of economics to analyze and predict the realities of human life. In this research, the aim is to investigate the effectiveness of social life results (health, life satisfaction, salary and education) from economic and social preferences, moral and locus of control.               

The current research was quasi-experimental research. The research community was made up of students of Tehran universities, who were selected as a sample using available sampling. To evaluate social, moral and economic preferences, the experiments designed by Becker and colleagues were used, and for the center of control, Rutter's questionnaire was used. Data were analyzed by linear regression method.

The results showed that the feeling of health component has a significant relationship with economic (risk and time), moral (trust, and altruism) and social preferences (countering positive example, countering negative example) and locus of control, which of course with all of them. Except for negative comparison, there was a significant direct relationship. Life outcome has a direct relationship with risk, trust, positive reciprocity and locus of control, and an inverse relationship with time, negative reciprocity and altruism.

The root of people's decision-making problems is in the framework of maximizing utility, and the utility of people is created by preferences such as risk-taking, time, trusting others, positive and negative reciprocity, and altruism. Economic, social and moral preferences along with locus of control complement each other in defining people's life outcomes.