SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1549626
The Role of Mental Accounting in Risk-Taking and Spending: A Meta-Analysis of the House-Money Effect
Provisionally accepted
- 1Keio University, Minato, Japan
- 2Graduate School of Economics, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This study systematically analyzes the house-money effect, a phenomenon in which people become more financially risk-taking and wasteful after receiving unexpected income. It aims to identify the general tendencies and factors that influence this effect, because the results reported in previous studies are inconsistent. Method: A total of 36 eligible studies with 57 continuous and 18 binary outcome effect sizes were included in this meta-analysis. A random-effects model was used to pool the effect sizes. Results: A low-to-moderate house-money effect (g = 0.37, rr = 1.33) was confirmed. However, high heterogeneity was observed, and the strength of the house-money effect varied widely, depending on the situation. The subgroup and meta-regression analyses revealed several moderators. While a strong effect was observed in the controlled experimental environment, the effect was weakened when it was closer to a real-world environment. For continuous outcomes, the effect was particularly pronounced in students and Asian regions, and the effect size decreased as the publication year increased, suggesting the limited universality of the house-money effect. In the publication-bias analysis, a slight bias was detected using multiple methods. Discussion: This suggests that the true effect size may be smaller, supporting the theory that the house-money effect is reproducible only under certain conditions.
Keywords: Mental accounting, House-money effect, Windfall, Risk taking, Decision Making, Systematic review, Meta-analysis
Received: 06 Mar 2025; Accepted: 23 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Dan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Kasumi Dan, Keio University, Minato, Japan
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.