Weather to Go to College
Penn collection
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decision making
incidental emotions
priming
weather
college choice
Business
Cognition and Perception
Cognitive Psychology
Educational Psychology
Higher Education
Marketing
School Psychology
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Abstract
Does current utility bias predictions of future utility for high stakes decisions? Here I provide field evidence consistent with such Projection Bias in one of life's most thought‐about decisions: college enrolment. After arguing and documenting with survey evidence that cloudiness increases the appeal of academic activities, I analyse the enrolment decisions of 1,284 prospective students who visited a university known for its academic strengths and recreational weaknesses. Consistent with the notion that current weather conditions influence decisions about future academic activities, I find that an increase in cloudcover of one standard deviation on the day of the visit is associated with an increase in the probability of enrolment of 9 percentage points.