Information is as valuable to us as objects.

Yana Litovsky © Litovsky - Through technical progress, it is now possible to store an almost unlimited amount of information and data. We all make active use of this. In a study published in the journal PNAS, economists and psychologists from the University of Innsbruck and Carnegie Mellon University (USA) show that we are just as attached to information as we are to physical objects. The fact that information - and personal beliefs or opinions derived from it - are important to us is evident even in our use of language: "We describe our attachment to personal beliefs, for example, as holding on to or letting go of something - breaking away from a long-held conviction or holding on to an opinion," explains Yana Litovsky, PhD, from the Institute of Banking and Finance at the University of Innsbruck. However, while the personal valuation of money and material goods has been extensively studied in economics, little research has focused on the similarity between the valuation of goods and information.This is a gap that Yana Litovsky and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) aim to fill with a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Game Theory. According to the conventional wisdom in economics and game theory, people value information only to the extent that this information supports decisions that lead to (also materially) better outcomes.