If you want to spend less, use cash, research confirms today.

Psychologists carried out four separate studies of how much people spend on their credit cards and in vouchers compared with cash. The results, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, showed that participants spent cash much more carefully than other forms of payment.

The authors, Priya Raghubir of New York University and Joydeep Srivastava of the University of Maryland, ranked payment methods from more transparent (cash) to less (credit cards and vouchers). The authors wanted to test whether “less transparent payment forms tend to be treated like play money and are hence more easily spent”.

One study was disguised as a market research exercise. Those questioned were given a description and a menu for a fictional restaurant. Half of the respondents were told the restaurant would accept credit cards, the other half were told it would accept cash only. Res-pondents were prepared to spend significantly more on their meal when they knew they could pay by card.

In another study volunteers were asked to plan the shopping for a celebratory meal. The participants were given a list of things to be bought and asked to estimate the total cost. Those who planned to pay by credit card thought the meal would cost on average $175 (€123, £99). Those who planned to pay cash set the limit at a more conservative $145.

There may be a way to combat this credit-card in-duced profligacy. The re-searchers asked other volunteers to go about the same task differently. They had to estimate the price for each individual item and then add them up. This time, credit card users made lower estimates of about $135.

The authors summarised their findings, saying that “the more transparent the payment type, the greater the ‘pain of paying' ”.

昨日發布的研究證實，如果你想花錢少一點，就使用現金。

心理學家對人們使用信用卡、代金券以及現金這三種不同支付方式所消費的金額開展了四項單獨的研究，結果表明，參與者花現金要比其它支付方式謹慎得多。《實驗心理學雜志：應用》(Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied)刊登了研究結果。

紐約大學(New York University)的普里亞•拉古比爾(Priya Raghubir)和馬里蘭大學(University of Maryland)的喬伊迪普•斯里瓦斯塔瓦(Joydeep Srivastava)是這份報告的作者。他們將支付方式從比較透明的（現金）到相對不透明的（信用卡和代金券）進行了排序。兩位作者想測試，“相對不透明的支付方式，是否更容易被認為是在玩錢，從而花起來更輕松一點”。

其中有一項研究被偽裝成了一次市場研究實踐。調查人員向被調查者描述了一家虛擬飯店和菜單。有一半被調查者被告知那家飯店可以接受信用卡，而其余的一半被告知飯店只接受現金。當被調查者得知可以使用信用卡付賬時，他們在餐飲上的計劃花費增加了很多。

在另一項研究中，志愿者被要求為一次慶宴計劃采購事宜。調查人員給了參與者一張購物清單，并要求他們估計總花銷。那些計劃用信用卡支付的人認為這次慶宴的平均花費為175美元，而打算用現金付賬的人則給出了145美元這一比較保守的上限。

可能會有方法來抑制這種信用卡肆意消費。研究人員要求其他志愿者從不同角度參加上述測試。他們需估計每一個單項的價格，然后把它們相加。這次，信用卡使用者做出了約135美元的較低估計。

作者總結他們的研究發現，得出結論稱：“支付方式越透明，‘付賬的痛苦'就越大”。